178, or, back on the wagon

Last night Susie Sunshine and I were on the phone talking about our need to get in shape.

And because I was already fed up with the way my jeans were biting me, and because I badly needed to prove the point I made earlier in our conversation (when I assured her that I am easy-going and not a bossy control-freak) I agreed to go back on Weight Watchers.

Well, of course. Susie Sunshine could talk you into doing anything. It's her way.

And so, here I go again. I'm back on the wagon, ready to count points and just say no to the snacks I supposedly buy for my children's lunch boxes.

And let me just say that I am glad I got this far in life before letting the crunchy, peanut-buttery, creaminess that is a Nutter Butter Peanut Butter cooky* into my mouth. If I had, I'd be much fatter. Because I would have wolfed down a few packages of those cute little peanut-shaped cookies. Damn skippy I would.**

OK. It begins with weighing myself. Now, my lying-sack-of-shit bathroom scale assures me that I haven't gained all that much weight. But if I haven't (and I have) it's because my jeans bit it off.

Still, this weigh-in gives me a ... a ... (damn this menopausal word retrieval problem!) baseline, like your first mammogram. Which is a very apt metaphor, because it's almost as scary.

And it said 178. It could be worse. In fact, it will be, when I get on a scale that isn't too intimidated by me to tell me the truth.

But I'm not going to any god-damned Weight Watchers meetings. My leader is annoying. You know how everyone thinks Weight Watchers meetings are nothing but a bunch of women whining and complaining?

Well, not my group. You can't get in a word edgewise around this woman. And for some reason, I don't enjoy listening to someone else dominate the conversation. So it's on line for me. And now, excuse me, I need to log on to the Weight Watchers website and log my weight. And then go do the treadmill for an hour.

* Note archaic spelling.
** (Pun intended.)

Update on the stolen purse and my current state, which is of such an anxiety, mon Dieu!

So, just on a whim, (because you all know I really want to climb back onto a plane and fly to Paris to pick up my recovered bag at the stolen bag holding facility in Paris) I sent an email to a former professor of mine, who, from time to time, spends a year in Paris running the junior year abroad program.

And guess what? It turns out that he wasn't running the program, but he happens to be in Paris this week, and he's agreed to help.

So right now, he and I are busy emailing back and forth. I've sent him scans of the letter from my new French boyfriend, Chief Inspector Dreyfus of the Recovered Handbags Department, and a scan of my passport, and a letter from me, telling the French police--in French--to pretty please hand my purse over to my former professor. (Which my former professor had to write for me, because as everyone who reads this blog already knows, I speak some French, but I am not tres fluent.)

So at the moment, I am COMPLETELY mental with a combination of excitement and suspense. Strangely enough, I'm also retroactively loving my vacation more and more. My daughter feels the same way. Like all of a sudden our vacation has morphed from this horrible ordeal where cruel French thieves conspire to make clodhopping Americans miserable to a warm and whimsical scene from a Jacques Tati movie. Can you hear the accordions playing, mes amis? Because I can.

Holy merde!

Today a letter arrived for me. Specifically, for Madame Buxom. It was greatly festoonee'd with the French stamps, mon dieu, and eet was from the Prefecture of zee Police!

I read through it pretty quickly, but it seems--correct me if I'm wrong--that les petits gendarmes have found my stolen purse. And now they want me to come get it.

Here's the letter:

Madame:

I have the pleasure to you inform that the objects referenced above and something you something were deposited the 29th of June 2007 in the Service of the Found Objects.

You are disposed of a delay of three months, counting from the date of the posting, for the picking up, in which you presenting to the address and in the hours indicated below. you wish well, something of your passage, you something the present letter and a piece of identification or the declaration of something itself.

If you can't displace yourself, you have the possibility of authorizing a person of your choice, bearing a piece of identification, to operate this retaking. You would well to him put, in addition to the documents cited above, a procurement on free paper, accompanied by a photocopy of your identity piece.

A right of guarding and of a showing of 10 Euros will be perceived at the moment of re-taking.

If these objects are not retired in the something prescribed, it will be disposed conforming vigorously to the rule.

I beg to something, Madame, the assurance of my distinguished consideration,

The Chie of the Office of Found Objects and something that sounds like furniture, foreigners, or furriers, I'm not sure,

Jean-Michel INGRANDT

I know what you're thinking: eight years of French and that's the best she can do?