Okay. Cold/allergy/flu…whatever….is a little better. I actually took two days off last week and just laid around the house looking pitiful and letting DH wait on me. I HATE snow. I hate it with a vengeance. I hate it with a smoldering, burning INSANE hatred. It snowed yet again Friday night from about 9:00 until noon on Saturday. Big, fluffy, Norman Rockwellian flakes that covered everything in a pristine white blanket  …everything new and clean….and cold and miserable. The tree branches had at least five inches of snow piled on top of them. I called my son out in L.A. He said, “Oh, mum. I’m soooo sorry. (You know, like someone had died). I’d do anything if I could bear this burden for you. Well, not really. That’s actually one of the reasons I’m in L.A. It’s 75 degrees here.” Hahahahahahaha. Right. Isn’t there some kind of rule that parent’s weather should be pleasanter than their children’s weather? No? Well there ought to be!

I said to DH yesterday that all I want is to be able to throw on a pair of lightweight pants and a pair of flipflops and go out the door. I am SO TIRED of having to wear fifty layers of clothes - and boots - to leave the house. Haven’t we had enough, already?

I want some daffies of my very own, Ms. Close!

Okay, I’ve kvetched and whined and carried on long enough. Today is the first Monday of March, and I am re-dedicating myself to attaining optimum levels of slimness and fitness so that this summer I can throw on a sleeveless top and not feel self-conscious about my arms, and wear a pair of shorts without hating how my legs look. Bathing suit? Well, maybe. Maybe not. The jury’s still out on that one.

I am, as I type, eating my signature “bag-o-fiber”, sipping my black coffee, and have numerous bottles of spring water in the fridge in the employee’s lunch room with my name conspicuously taped to them. I intend to drink oceans of water, eat as few calories and as much fiber as I possibly can, and emerge, somewhere around May first looking like….um…well, looking like me, only thinner and maybe a little browner if I can manage to get a little sun in small doses so that it doesn’t turn my wrinkles to crevices or promote skin cancer. I’m actually very fortunate that I don’t have WAY more wrinkles than I do,  because I spent my younger years - and my middle years as well - as a confirmed sun worshiper. There wasn’t a summer that went by without our being at the beach for a month and then every weekend when we weren’t actually staying there. For a while, I even did the tanning salons to keep my color into late fall and early winter. I hated being pale and pasty-looking. Now I’ve resigned myself to NOT hanging out in the sun any more because at my age, your skin turns to leather and you look like a giant raisin when you try to get a tan. So I’ll content myself with maybe just a healthy “glow” to my skin and a good bit less of it (skin, that is).

I’ve gotten past the worst of my space issues. I’m feeling a little less hemmed in - if only, maybe, because it’s March and even if it’s still snowy-looking outside, spring HAS to be on it’s way before too much longer.

Watched “American Gangster” Saturday night at DD’s house. Yikes. Denzell Washington actually turned his role of a vicious gangster into an almost sympathetic one. After all, he loved his momma and was good to his wife - set all his brothers up in business. I thought the most valid part of the whole thing was when Ruby Dee (who played his momma) slapped him in the face. A lot like “The Godfather” series - and “The Sopranos”, I guess, although I never got into watching that. When his momma slapped him, it reminded me of when my son was about thirteen - I’d divorced his father a few years before, the older girls were both married with their own homes, and my youngest girl was a freshman in college - away from home for the first time. At thirteen, my son was @ 6′2 or 3, and there I was, raising him by myself. He gave one - and only ONE try at defying me by staying out past his curfew. He stayed out all night, in fact. When he dragged his sorry behind home the next day, I chased that boy from one end of the house to the other with a broom and whacked him good. After that, he never disrespected my wishes again. Watching his Momma slap Denzell’s character in “American Gangster” I couldn’t help but think she should’ve beat his butt long before that.

Well. Life goes on. I feel so old some days, and others not so much. My sis is healing up well, and we’re talking about heading out to the west coast in the fall. I’m to “stay on my computer” and find some good (air) fares and connections. We’re going to rent ourselves a convertible…we really are….and drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu with white silk scarves trailing behind us. We’ve GOT to do this. I suppose if we really wanted to “Thelma & Louise” it, we’d stay at  a few cheap motels along the way, but won’t, of course, because we’ll stay with my DS.

Well, it’s nearly 9:00 so things will start hopping around here soon. Better get myself a second cuppa coffee.

TTFN, my lovies,

Z