You know how on New Year’s Day you recklessly make those stupid things called resolutions? And you know how one of those resolutions is always to lose weight because basically you’ve been eating fattening food for the entire holiday season and your pants no longer zip up? And you know how you always feel so much better about yourself when you write down “exercise more, eat less?”
Yeah. I felt better writing that resolution. I just don’t like living it.
Anyway, I managed to avoid my resolution for a while. But then one day I put on real pants instead of sweatpants. Hello? Sweatpants are evil. They always fit. You don’t even know how big your butt is until you try to put on last year’s jeans and you realize … you’ve packed on some pounds. Also? Zippers will break if you try to force them closed. I’m just saying.
Anyway, that’s when I realized it had been a while since I’d exercised. You know, like since the holidays had begun. Yeah. It had been a few months since I’d done my daily walk with my dogs, the husband and, rarely, the teenager.
Yes, I’m ashamed to admit it had been so long. But I didn’t let it get me down, although it was tempting. I mean, at that point I could have just given up and gone into full-on Salted Caramel Gelato therapy twice a day, but I didn’t. And do you know why?
Because one of my dogs is a chunky monkey too. In fact, Kirby resembles a very overstuffed sausage with a raisin head and toothpick legs.
So we began to walk. Now this would have been awesome, except we had to take No-No Lulu with us. I don’t have anything against No-No Lulu, but she has enough energy to light up the Eastern seaboard. Not to mention she is skinny as heck, mainly because she spends most of her days patrolling the backyard in search of nefarious threats like leaves blowing in the breeze.
Also? No-No Lulu has apparently spent her entire life in our backyard making lists of enemy dogs in the neighborhood. I swear to you, we could not go 20 feet without No-No Lulu running into someone she hated – which caused her to bark like a wild thing.
The fluffy, little white dog owned by the neighbor down the street? No-No Lulu hated her (the dog presumably, not the neighbor), so No-No Lulu barked, barked, barked at her. The beagle the next street over who barked and moaned and made weird beagle sounds whenever No-No Lulu came near him? Hated. Barked, barked, barked at him as well. The curly-haired dog that looked like Justin Timberlake during his Britney Spears period? Hated. Hated. Hated. Barked. Barked. Barked.
Honestly it got kind of embarrassing. I mean, No-No Lulu is getting a reputation for being something of the neighborhood rhymes-with-witch. And I was dragging Ole Fatty – I mean, Kirby – and myself up over hills and possibly mountains ranges (please, it totally felt like that), all the while stopping to apologize for No-No Lulu’s over-the-top barking.
And then there is the teenager. When he comes along, I try to use our walks as quality time. But seriously, you can’t just MAKE a teenager talk. The planets have to align, he has to have just eaten and all talks must take place in the 2.5 seconds he has between phone calls and text messages. Frankly, this is difficult. But I do manage to get some good talks in between all that and the dog barking. For example, I now know what dubstep is. My ears will never be the same again (if you don’t know what dubstep is, let’s just say ignorance is truly blissful and less harmful to your hearing).
As it turns out, Harry and I decided it was best for us to walk when most people don’t. You know, when it’s freezing cold or raining or both, but at least we know that No-No Lulu won’t run into one of her enemies while they are out on their walks. And sometimes we walk in silence. Or maybe we are talking, but I have dubstep-induced deafness, I don’t know.
But my pants now button. So I’m calling that a victory.
