Fabulous Fantasyland

I've been lost in a fabulous fantasyland, ignoring real life and just drifting along ignoring all responsibilities, all exercise, eating whatever presents itself. I live in a haze between episodes of Mad Men, just waiting until I can sit down and be mesmerized by the world unfolding before my eyes.

My mother, 1959. She was no model in Italy, but she was kicked out of graduate school in order to give her place to a man. And, the Dean told my father what was happening to his wife, rather than giving her the courtesy of telling her himself. Probably he was afraid she'd cry. 

I got the first episode on iTunes just before my trip, and brought a few along on the iPad to watch on board. I watched the first episode on June 14, on the plane to Italy. A few more were watched on deck chairs in the Mediterranean. What was this bizarro world they inhabited - smoking, drinking, letting children plan with dry cleaning bags - who were these people? How could they be so casually sexist and racist? It took a few episodes to realize:  they were my parents. Actually, they weren't my parents, but they were my parent's friends. Don Draper was born in 1928, between my mother and father. I watched the solar eclipse with Sally Draper's class, I wore her cupcake dresses, my sister (the late, unexpected baby) was in my mother's arms when the news came that Kennedy had been shot.  My brother saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV.

Thanksgiving 1962 (my brother took the picture, and my father is giving him instructions)

One bone to pick:  it's not possible that Norwegian Peggy Olson from Brooklyn is Roman Catholic. There is a huge Norwegian Lutheran Church my family would visit to see distant relatives and eat traditional food right up through the 1980s. Maybe to Hollywood producers anyone first or second generation European-American living in Brooklyn is Catholic, maybe they never heard of Martin Luther or the reformation, but less than one-half of one percent of all Norwegians today are Catholic - its over 95% identified as Lutheran, with more people identifying as Muslim or Buddhist than Catholic. Do they not think Protestants have rules or have guilt? Imagine the frisson if the guitar playing youth pastor were not sworn to celibacy but was instead available.  Obviously, someone got to the writers and they knew enough that Peggy would have to pretend her Swedish Manhattan roommate was actually Norwegian to pass muster.  So far, this is the falsest note of the whole series to me.

But I've moved on and the story arc is soaring!  Now, halfway through Season Four, the women are out there. So is the overt hostility of the young men threatened by the women. In 1965, I knew I couldn't be an astronaut. I wanted to be a sailor or a lighthouse keeper, but it seemed lighthouse keeper's daughter was the closest job open to me - though I was missing the key qualification of my father's choice of profession.[Footnote: the irony is that recapturing actual women's history from actual records indicates that lighthouse keeper in real life was the first government job routinely held by women in America, often taking over from deceased husbands.]  But here is the joy of this moment: Peggy has discovered she is not entirely alone.  There are other working women out there, and they want what she wants.

Erstwhile lighthouse keeper's daughter, probably 1965

So I'm living in this totally absorbing fantasyland, ignoring life unfolding around me. Cooking? Laundry? Bill paying? The office? Time with the kids? I can squeeze a few grudging moments in between episodes. Sleep? Definitely suffering. Exercise? Not so much. Ice cream from the container while watching, absently finishing it all?  Well, yeah, more than once.

While I am sucking down the episodes, so far I haven't just hit "play" instantly to get the next episode after an episode is over. No, I'm checking out fabulous and opinionated Tom and Lorenzo for each episode, as well as their style guides, and occasional other fan sites, for analysis and opinions. There is time to do that, while still inhabiting this stirring time line.

So the whole weight loss / be strong thing isn't going so well. I just saw Don Draper pull himself together, cut back on the drinking, and swim a few laps. Surely I can do the same?

But my goal is to be caught up before the season starts. When is that?  Five minutes didn't turn the date up on the AMC website, but a note that it was nominated for 17 Emmy's did show up. And it was so tempting to go elsewhere on the website, but I'm trying very very hard to avoid spoilers. There are a few I've stumbled upon, but so far Tom and Lorenzo are sufficiently well labelled I've avoided most untimely unveilings.

I'm careening out of control, folks. Like Don Draper, I need to keep a journal to try to control myself. Since this is the 2010s, not the 1960s, my version is a blog. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't actually measure and calculate what I'm doing here.  Through the magic of computers, I know exactly when I've watched what, and the rapid acceleration of my obsession looks ripe for a sudden crash.

Hi There, Remember Me?

I'm just back from my first ever Pilates class, and I'm a bit too jazzed to sleep just yet. The class is offered through the same yoga studio I attended last summer. My back- or more precisely, my butt, hip and leg sciatic nerve- has been acting up so I decided to go for six evening Pilates classes. I'm still doing the personal training, but I cut it back to twice a week to make it more affordable.

Stress continues to be through the roof at work. The family is in slower summer gear, and I'm enjoying having my big boy around so much. But every week there is a different schedule- no such thing as a routine. I've not felt very energetic outside of work (too hot or too humid), and my magic calorie-expenditure device is on a downward trend. In contrast, my weight has drifted up a couple of pounds, so as of today I'm one-in-a-row on daily Weight Watchers tracking. I have got to realize I simply cannot eat ice cream every day. Not without kicking up the activity level a lot.

I really liked the Pilates. It was more movement than the yoga, but less than personal training. I had a lot of stretch and flex of the butt and hips in the course of doing the abs work I expected. So right now the long inflamed nerve is calmer. I'm thinking a nice non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and bed is just what I need. And I've exactly hit my daily WW points target, without using any weekly or activity points, so I should definitely quit while I'm ahead.

Good night.

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Power Outage Diet

Breakfast: half a spinach omelet & sausage from Whole Foods
Midday: unfrozen grilled meat extravaganza- lamb chops and chicken sausages
Supper: mozzarella sticks & hot fudge sundae at Friendly's

I'm off to work today and had planned to start tracking w WW again. I should be able to make better choices downtown than around here.


- iPhone uPdate

The Photos

I had done up a nicely organized album, using iPhoto on my iPad. However, much of the day was spent trying to upload to share and it totally failed. So here is the link to the partially curated but unorganized and unlabeled photos on Picasa/Google Plus instead:

Nan's 2012 Med Cruise

Anyone with the link can view.  Enjoy.

The Tally

14 days away
6 of us together (me, my mother, HS, all 3 kids)
2 hotel rooms/cabins (3 per room, boys and girls)
4 countries visited (Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Monaco - not counting US)
8 cities visited (Rome, Florence, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Palmas de Mallorca, Tunis, Palermo, Naples)
19 hours on airplanes
5 hours in airports

13 bacon and egg breakfasts consumed
9 desserts as part of 9 four course dinners aboard ship
7 gelatos bought on the street
5 helpings of french fries at lunch
2 cups of coffee per day (just happened, didn't intend to cut back)
1-2 alcoholic drinks per day (beer and mojitos), except
2 1/2 bottles of wine consumed for most fabulous dinner in Rome

2 trips to the gym, 1 mile run each time
1 2-hour kayak trip
oodles and oodles of walking

7 books read (last of Gregor the Overlander, 3 of Thief of Attolia, Nevada Barr, Sue Grafton, American Dervish) I love my kindle!
7 tv episodes watched (3 Downton Abbey, 4 Mad Men - I hadn't ever seen it, and bought season 1 on iTunes to watch on ipad)
270 minutes of shipboard wifi purchased and used
3 restaurants selected because of free wifi
105 emails noted but never opened (about 20 actually opened)
1 new niece arrived early but healthy - thank goodness for email!
2 times work email checked, no action necessary

3 ties bought so men could join us beautiful women at formal dinners on ship
3 bracelets bought
3 pairs of earrings bought
1 magic carpet bought in Tunisia
3 tshirts bought
2 caftans bought by our men

2 major electronics failures
1 drivers licence lost
1 iphone stolen
4 bags of laundry on ship
3 trips to shipboard medical center for
2 courses of antibiotics

630 photos taken - stay tuned for link to highlights
35 minutes - amount of time so far waiting for photos to transfer to PC
193,000,000 (approx.) Vespas spotted
gazillions of sights, sounds, smells, as backdrops for books I've read and will read

more than a few laughs
a new career as dinner table magician by our big boy
a lifetime worth of memories

11 pieces of non-junk mail waiting
about two more hours before I check my work email and lose the vacation glow

and, is this even possible, only TWO pounds gained?

Ice Cream and Exercise

I'm on a totally fabulous trip, all around the western Mediterranean on a cruise ship. Today is Monte Carlo in Monaco, home to the very origin of fabulousness and nothing but beautiful people. No travelogue right now, just an update on eating and exercise, because my body still does its thing, no matter what my current place on the planet or my state of mind.

It is hot hot hot here, and in Italy before this. That is, hot even by their standards: up to 100 F yesterday in Florence. I cannot begin to describe the sense of beauty and culture from being in Italy. One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to walk and walk and walk, looking at people and things and taking pictures. I've done that, and interrupted the walks with beer or ice cream at many opportunities.

Europe is expensive beyond belief, and that managed to keep the eating down before we boarded the cruise ship. Beer and gelato is quite affordable, but all four courses of an Italian meal with wine is not something I could afford very often, because of both money and calories. But now we're on the cruise ship, and so all the food is already included. It's a good thing I really don't care much for wine anyway- onboard its not cheap either. Beer and mojitos are more my style, and they go down really well on a hot fabulous vacation.

For two days in Rome we walked and stood around on tours. Yesterday in Florence and today here in Monte Carlo there were a few hours walking in the high heat. But this morning, no one else in the family was rousing and I was restless, so I went off to the gym on the ship. Me and the iPod put in a couple of miles on the treadmill, and then waved some dumbbells around for a while. I really really enjoyed it. The feeling of getting my heart really pumping is very stress relieving, and the full extension and stretching with the weights makes me feel good.

I'm having the full meal every night, and very indulgent breakfasts. Lunch has been just gelato a couple of times, without my feeling deprived in the least. I definitely will gain weight on this cruise, and I don't care too much about it. I'm choosing the immediate gratification. It's easy to tell myself the food is part of the never to be repeated experience. But I'm also going to keep active. There is no way my little workout comes close to equalling my extra calorie intake, but I work out because I enjoy it while I do it, as well as for the benefit it brings me of keeping the energy level up so I can do other things. It's part of what I do when I'm on vacation and pleasing myself.

 

Tracking Challenge

I retroactively tracked the whole week last night, trying to be brutally honest about my food intake. Both choices and quantity have been really off track for a few days. It added up to an amazing amount of points, made worse by the fact I've only earned three activity points all week. I've got three days to go in my WW week- can I live within the remaining point total - only three weekly points left with three full days (including two weekend days) to go?

So here are the really positive aspects of the WW tracking, to my point of view. I get every day a new daily total, and if I really focus on vegetables and fruit it can be a very satisfying amount of food. Plus, I can add back points with some activity. So, even though I've got some social events this weekend, and no structured exercise planned, I'm going to give it a whirl. I'll let you know Sunday night or Monday how it went.