I’d Do Much Better on the Amazing Race

My Dad’s birthday was last weekend, and my sisters all pitched in to buy him an “American Girl” Barnes & Noble gift card, because darned if they weren't all out of the ones with the assault rifles and the NRA logo on them. But I went my own way and gave him a Watersmeet Nimrods T-shirt to wear the next time he visits Upper Michigan. Because I am by far the coolest.

While we were at my parents’ house for the birthday festivities, somebody found a drawer full of old photos of the DemiGoddesses from back when they were all little and cuddly and adorable (sniffle), and from the family trip we all took to England and France in the spring of 1999. I found one of those so particularly horrifying that I had to ask out loud, “Who’s the cow on the left? MOOOOOOOO!”

Of course, the cow was ME.

And that photo was taken three years before my Great Weight Loss of ’03, when one of the inspiration tools I relied on to keep me motivated was another photo, a black and white shot taken by my cousin Tiffany at Christmas 2002, of me sitting on a couch with some other family members. Or, more accurately, me taking up waaaaaaaay more than my fair share of the real estate on that couch. Ouch.

Remembering that photo reminded me that it’s Christmas time once again, and how nice it is to be so very toned and HEALTHY these days. Except for, um, those cookies with the pound and a half of butter in them that are all over my dining room table. The ones that I nibble on every time I pass through that room (many, many times a day). And except that my exercise bike has pretty much served as a coat rack for the past several weeks, and my hand weights are buried somewhere behind the gifts under the Christmas tree.

If I don’t get my act together, by next year I’ll be right back in bovine-land, so I resolved that as soon as the holidays are over, I will consume nothing but water and the occasional cup of hot tea for the entire month of January.

Later that night, we all gathered ‘round the TV to watch the Survivor finale, which reminded me that there is no way I will ever hold to my resolution, because unlike Yul and Ozzie and Becky, I am not a Goddess who can function for any length of time without food. And while Yul without a shirt makes excellent eye candy:


(Yummy.)

...one cannot live on washboard abs alone. In fact, as my children will tell you, when my blood sugar starts to get low, I become one ornery Goddess.

My sister Meghan is exactly the same way, and we agreed that neither one of us would ever last a day on Survivor, unless they changed the ultimate goal of the game from being the last one voted out to being the first person to hack all the other contestants to bits with a machete. Then we would totally win.