Domestica

It was, all in all, a nice weekend. Saturday I spent eating and reading. Sunday I amused myself by forgetting to turn the clock back and cleaning the house. I suppose starting to clean the house sounds like a good idea if you accidentally get up at 4:00 a.m., and you think it's 5. It also is much nicer in theory, but starts to loose some of it's gloss when you realize after getting off to an all too enthusiastic start and only to realize there are some places in your apartment that haven't been ministered to since you moved in.

I am also coming to terms with the idea of having another major purge. You know how it is. You live anywhere long enough, and all of the junk that you remember bringing into the house meets, falls in love and starts reproducing. There is some stuff that I will be willing to swear that I never brought into the house. I have to wonder, does Alice go out on shopping sprees while I am at work, hitting flea markets and bringing home shopworn items of doubtful usefulness, or do my neighbors just break in, and dump all of their unwanted crap in my place because it's closer than the dumpster?

The long and short of it is that I had planned on virtuously spending a day cleaning the house and that would be the end of it. As with all the best layed plans, it has turned into something of a long term project that is going to, in the end I believe, involve my own personal dumpster and possibly a backhoe. How one small man and one large cat can generate so much mess and extraneous garbage I don't know. I would also like to know where all these clothes I am certain I never bought which I am now going to have to take to Goodwill, convert into dustrags or simply throw out, came from. For some reason, most of the stuff I am finding is not lost but loved possessions, but more like finding that homeless drunks or raccoons have taken up residence in my closets and all clothes drawers.

Let this be a lesson to you, housekeeping should consist of giving the place a sweeping glance.

Weather report

It feels like a real October day out, though a little warm. It has been overcast, and rainy and the wind seems to be taking down a few branches. They had predicted the possibility of thunderstorms this afternoon, though those don't seem to be manifesting themselves. Still all in all it is a pleasantly dismal New England day in late October. A perfect day for staying in the house curled up with a book, eating too much fattening food that I will regret, and spend all next week working off in the gym.

That's next week and for now, I am happy just to have an excuse to behave in a slug like manner and hunker down with some tea, a book and too many snacks. Tomorrow is suppose to be sunny and pleasant and will exercise it's siren call with the urgent knowledge that there won't be too many more days that I will really want to spend the day wandering around outside until spring comes and the good weather is back. But just for today it's nice to coccoon.

Update

I really haven't been keeping up with my blogging lately and I have to say it is starting to get on my conscience! So much to write about too! Things at work are going through a shake up, major dental work with more to come, every muscle in my body aching because of the new work out and a topic of special interest, an ingrown pubic hair.

How can I have been neglecting my small but adoring public with so many fascinating topics to bitch about. I am a bad little man. I will just have to get the bit back between my teeth and get writing. Don't give up on me yet, I will make myself sit down and start writing about this, that and the other thing.

Weekend

Saturday morning I through sheer force of will dragged myself over to my garden and started getting the autumn cleanup underway. What a mess! I have been avoiding the garden for a few weeks now, and to the casual observer it didn't look all that bad. Lots of black eyed susans and marigolds still defying the cooler temperatures. On closer inspection the weeds had been propigating like white trash, and much creeping vineyness in the form of bindweed and morning glories that seem to have naturalized themselves in the gardens. So, with sinking heart I commandeered an wheelbarrow and started yanking weeds and deadheading perrenials. To my surprise the time actually flew, and before I knew it, it was noon. So off to home for lunch and a disco nap, so that I wouldn't fall asleep during symphony.

The afternoon sort of flew by and before I knew it I was meeting Clint in front of Symphony Hall. Symphony has has a recent face lift and the renovations are very nice. It had the last time I had seen it still looked like some grand lady in reduced circumstances. However with all of the gilding, painting and carpeting no one in the organization, in their infinite wisdom has seen fit to replace the butt deadening seats in the auditorium. As I observed to Clint, this is New England, so you probably can't properly appreciate culture unless you are benumbed behind. The perfomance itself was very enjoyable, Peter Serkin gave a wonderful performance of Brahms Piano Concerto #2 and Levine as usual was up to his high standard conducting both the Brahms and Schumann's Symphony #2. There were no big surprises since both pieces are warhorses, but they are the type of music that regardless of the number of times you have heard them, they are always enjoyable. Afterward it was off to home and my chaste (damnit) bed.

Sunday involved more gardening. I wound up planting about 150 spring bulbs, which will probably end up feeding the neighborhood squirrels over the winter. Regardless, it was good to be up and doing something instead of sinking further into my seasonal funk. Around noon it was time to go home and start making myself beautiful for Warren and get to the theater. The opera was very good. I was impressed by both the singing and the orchestra. I had not been in the Majestic in a long time and they too have been busy bees,renovating and it is quite the grand Victorian chocolate box now. The only sour note in the whole opera came not from the stage but from the chatting, giggling cellophane rattling idiots sitting in back of us. Against all expectation, they were not young. Not even remotely young! After the performance when we were having dinner, Warren told me that last year he had gone to an afternoon series at Symphony and it was all pensioners and that they were the worst audience he had ever encountered. His theory is that they are not so much interested in going out to listen to the music as they are looking forward to some break in their routine.

All in all I have to say it was a very good weekend. I enjoyed the company as much, if not more than the actual events. I think it is all a part of aging, I am finding it all too easy to climb into my own small personal space and not come out and look at the world around me, or make time for friends or activities that occur outside of the bounded space I create for myself. It was good to get outside of my own head and notice that there is indeed a big world out there with a lot of things to see I have not seen before and things to do I haven't done before.

The cost of war

I think like a lot of people, when Pat Tillman died in Iraq I gave the story rather short strift. Even after the revelation that Tillman was the victim of "friendly fire" the media and the Bush administration seemed intent on using this young man's death as a PR opportunity to promote the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Yesterday I came across this story by Kevin Tillman. It asks some serious questions about American policy and what a complaisant public has been willing to tolerate from a questionable government.

I have nothing to add other than to offer my sympathies to the Tillman family.

Rough week

It has been kind of an off week for me. I have not been feeling all that well, involving tummy upsets and "the dire rear". This also meant some lost work time and general feeling sorry for myself and grumpiness.

It has left me feeling a little guilty, because I have been feeling pretty self absorbed and not paying attention to what is going on with my friends. A good example being that my co-worker and friend Buttermonkey is in the middle of home buying hell and I don't feel like I have been as supportive as I should be. God knows he has an equally if not more dreadful family than I do, and they are not being of any help at all. I think if I was buying my own place, my own family would be taking the opportunity to share every home buying horror story they could think of and in general letting me know I was making the biggest mistake of my life up until this date. At least they'd take an interest!

I just need to cheer up. Aside from wondering why the top of my head hasn't caved in, since I am sure I shit my brain out a couple of days ago there are things to be cheerful about. I am going to symphony tomorrow night and I will be going to the opera on Sunday for "la Clemenza di Tito", an opera I have not seen in years, and which I quite like. Both I should add, at the largess of friends, since theater tickets are not in the budget currently.

I should also think about doing some work in my sadly neglected garden this weekend. I have been very lazy about things, and so last weekend went out and bought some spring bulbs. I am trying not to think too hard about the fact that there is a very good chance that all of the tulip bulbs will wind up feeding squirrels over the course of the winter. Not that this is a promising weekend for bulb planting. The weather is still too warm to plant. It is the 20th of October and the temperature is suppose to be up in the 60's! How they hell did this happen?

So, onward an upward. Besides, I get to do some charity work next week. I have a very expensive visit at the dentist and I am sure that will help him pay his mortgage! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that my cavity ridden teeth are in their own small way, making life better for someone.

Avast!

On our Friday coffee break, Buttermonkey, Boyflex and I were joined by the babacious Michele. We went outside so that the sinners could have a nicotine fix, and after we had finished, Michele announced she didn't want to go back. "Let's run away with the circus. We could do it, they're in town." Buttermonkey, who worked for Ringling Bros. once upon a time, vetoed the idea.

I piped up with, "Let's just tell people we were captured by pirates!" This was met with a certain amount of enthusiasm, especially after I added "Yeah, I could say I was abducted by pirates and they did terrible things to me! They didn't want to, but I made them."

Hey, Poppa?

I left the gym a little earlier than usual this morning, and decided to indulge in my 2 remaining vices, caffeine and nicotine. After walking out of my morning spot, I went across Tremont to sit on a bench in the common and watch the garbage and pigeons fly around. It is a beautiful fall morning and the sky is fading from a pale silvery blue in the east to brilliant aquamarine in the west, the air is cold enough that I was wishing that I had put on something warmer than a jeans jacket. As I was just sitting there getting lung cancer on the installment plan, I heard someone saying, "Hey, Poppa?" Looking up, there was a pretty disreputable homeless guy. "Hey, Poppa... could I have a cigarette please?" I looked at this guy who I doubt has seen a shower for quite some time. Where his skin wasn't red, it was blue from the cold. I couldn't tell you how old he was. He had obviously been living rough for quite a while and he could have been 70 or he could have been my age. I pulled out the pack and gave him a smoke. He lit up and thanked me a couple of times, and as he was getting ready to walk away he said, "Nice hat."

I'm not sure why this has struck me so much. Maybe because the way the world is working these days, I like a lot of people am only a paycheck or 2 away from the streets myself. Maybe it was because this guy who hasn't got much of anything else left, has unlike so many who have so much, has managed to keep courtesy.

I read an article yesterday about the McNews culture and how the media keeps us entertained with celebrity news, distracting us with the hijinx of the rich and famous and ignoring real issues that are just too hard to think about. One of the issues sited in the article was the growing population of the homeless in the land of plenty and the growing disparity of wealth. I don't know what it will take to make people realize that unless we do something, make some effort to be a little more selfless, that we too might wind up asking some older guy for a handout because having made bad choices or just because of bad luck we are out on the street, hoping someone will give us a handout, because the society we live in won't give us a hand up.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

In an attempt to get myself out of the cranky mood that I have been laboring under for the past few weeks, I have been trying to concentrate on some of the good things that have been making themselves available to me. Among them that Terry Pratchett has a new book out, as well as Neil Gaiman I also recently bought Raul Malo's new album, "You're Only Lonely, which if it is not one of my 5 star choices still gets 4 if not 4 and a half stars. Last but not least, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome is in print again. If you've never read "Three Men in a Boat" I suggest that you run out and get a copy, and prepare yourself to be embarrassed by laughing out loud, if you are reading it on your commute. There, I feel better already!

I'll have my regular

Everyone has their routines. To the horror of my friends I have my own which involves getting up at an ungodly hour and heading off to the gym before work. I like my gym because it is small and unpretentious. I also like the fact that the early morning crowd tend to be like myself, older and no one is going to win the Mr. Universe contest. Then after an hour and half of self inflicted torture I head off to work. On the way to the train I stop here for a cup of joe. Everyone talks about how much they hate Starbuck's, the Gap and all of the other chains but they all wind up shopping there. I like my new coffee stop because it is a Mom and Pop. I have been going there a couple of months now, and as I walk through the door, the guy behind the counter is already pouring my coffee! It takes me back to when people had their regular places, knew the name of the propriator and the more social types knew the other regular patrons. I doubt my consumer choice is going to start a trend, but it's nice to know that it is still possible to have a regular place that isn't annonymous, and if you are still just a face, at least you are a familiar one.

A Couple of Views

I was walking down Mass. Ave yesterday and as I was going past the Christian Science Center, I thought I was having a hallucination. The bells started ringing and I had to stop in my tracks, because against all common sense the carillon was playing "Home On the Range"! Was it one of Mary Baker Eddy's favorites, or is it unbeknownst to the rest of the world a Christian Science hymn?




Then walking home this evening, I was treated to what I think of as "hand of God" skies, where the sun is behind some clouds and the light really does come out in rays. Fortunately, I had my camera for a switch, so here it is folks.

My final slightly odd sighting was a pair of red-tailed hawks, having and aerial quarrel over some critter that one of them had in it's talons. They were swooping and screaming over the park and nearby apartment buildings. It has to be 20 years since I saw the first red-tail that had decided to make the Fenway neighborhood its home, but somehow seeing them just never gets old. Unfortunately, my digital camera isn't good at stopping motion, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It was a sight to see, and after a slightly tough day it did my heart good.

Yo ho ho

I have had a couple of interesting experiences with people commenting on my appearance at work recently.

A couple of weeks ago, Buttermonkey and I were sneaking out for a cigarette and were joined by one of our favorite straight co-workers, Boyflex. As we were walking down the hall I was ahead, and suddenly Boyflex pipes up, “Have you ever noticed that Tony has a really nice ass?” While having some straight guy comment on my moneymaker was a little out of the ordinary, I am willing to take a compliment wherever it comes from these days.

Then a couple of days ago I was chatting with one of our visiting scholars. She had just received an express packet from her school and was a little put out. They were asking her to write a letter of recommendation for someone, and she is on sabbatical and is suppose to be excused from these chores. As we were talking I jokingly told her maybe I could get on a plane and go down to her school and beat up the person responsible. Just as I was saying this, her husband who is also a visiting scholar walked up. He said, “ I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but you look like someone for the job.” I am pretty used to this and said something to the effect that I know that I look like a thug. He looked surprised and said, “ Oh! No. You look like a pirate!”
So, Pirate.

Pirate booty.

Dry spell

I have been in mental limbo recently. My job which I like has been a little funky and my situation there as someone who works on a contract basis as opposed to a regular employee has been causing some concern.

There was also the wedding event, which actually went much smoother than could have been hoped for, though it brought up some issues dating back to my childhood due to a conversation with my older brother which I have been working through. All of these things are worth talking about and more. But I feel as though I am still digesting them. Also, it is autumn in New England which is somehow always a bit melancholy.

However it is time to get back in the saddle and start looking at the absurdity that is life in the world. To help remind me of that I have had yet more bald encounters. I saw a wonderfully bad toupee on the train the other morning, and as a morning for contemplating the chrome domes of the world I saw 2 adds addressing the worries of the follicelarely challenged from 2 different angles. The first, for those who miss their glory days of having a flowing mane was regrow in case you want to give regaining your lost youth the old college try. The second was for baldguyz which is a product I would be much more likely to give a try.

All of this could just mean that I am a little too obsessed with my own gleaming pate, but hey, finally it might be fine to try to be happy with yourself as you are. It doesn't mean that the market place isn't going to try and exploit your new found peace of mind, and sell you products to make you feel even better because you are bald or older or less than the ideal of the moment, but finally there might be some hope that you can get through a day without feeling like you have to make some superficial change to yourself in order to feel like you have a right to be alive.

Photographic proof

I have been neglecting my duties as a diarist. So until I get a chance to chronicle my experiences at the wedding here is a picture of the niece and I. Yes, I wore a suit.

Take me out to the ballgame?

I saw this news item this morning. I guess they've never been over in the Fens during a Red Sox game. All those ball fans out for a little extra entertainment. Gives a whole new meaning to "take me out to the ball game".

More reflections on bald heads

I was talking with Buttermonkey the other day. We were continuing our convestation about the "bald phenomena". He had been polling friends and they were pretty evenly split between inspirations. Patrick Stewart and Michael Jordan.

Buttermonkey was suggesting that either had a fairly limited audience, but I pointed out that both were real cultural phenomenon. Non Trekkies were in front of the set watching Next Generation, and even a sports ignoramous like myself knows who Michael Jordon is.

Maybe it's both, maybe it is some even stranger curve of cultural consiousness, but whatever the reason, I'm keeping the razor out.

D-Day approaches

I have been relict in my documentation of the upcoming wedding drama and so much has gone on I hardly know where to begin.

Among the generalized stupidity that has been transpiring is the trials of my poor niece. She of the hotel reservations. After throwing a shit fit about the cost of the hotel, her mother decided to go and represent the family at a competing wedding that is happening on the same day. My sister-in-law has chosen to continue to believe that niece v.2 was not invited to the wedding of my younger brothers daughter. Firmly holding onto this belief she is now viewing her oldest daughter as a class traitor for attending the wedding being held in the enemy camp.

The upside is that my older brother freed from the control of his lovely spouse is going to go to the more expensive hotel so that he can avail himself of all that lovely free booze at the reception and get chauffeured back to the hotel in whatever state he manages to get himself into.

The downside is that he offered to let me share the hotel room with him so that I would not be imposing on my younger brother and his wife. Not that being considerate is a bad thing, but proximity to my entire family is a rather questionable enjoyment. He told my mother about this plan, which led to a frantic day of phone calls last Saturday, which went a long way toward running up my cell phone bill. The upshot of all of this was that my mother thought this was a great idea because it would mean uninterrupted access to me whereby she could latch onto me and monopolize my attention for the entire length of my stay.

As I said there is nothing wrong with being considerate, so I called the mother of the bride to see if it would indeed be easier on her and my brother if I stayed at the hotel. I wound up as usual having a nice conversation with my sister-in-law, and got her take on all of the drama that has been transpiring. She had her own twist to add to the situation. It would seem that the happy couple have been married for almost a year now. My brother and his wife it appears were not enlightened about this course of events until last Memorial Day! Once the cat was out of the bag, the happy bride announced she wanted a “real wedding” with all the trimmings. From what I can gather, the bride and groom who were already engaged decided to move things along because the fiancé, who is not an American citizen was having visa problems and they hoped that getting married would make the problems go away. Fat chance with the new immigration laws. Why the bride never told her parents is still something of a mystery, but I congratulated my sister-in-law on her daughter carrying on the Pelletier family’s fine tradition of odd-ball behavior. She just laughed and said that once they had heard their daughter out, my brother just looked at his wife and said, she takes after my side of the family. The final upshot of our conversation was that my brother and his wife were counting on my staying with them and looking forward to a chance to visit, as much as I was looking forward to the opportunity to escape from my mother. Having cleared that up, I apologized to my sister-in-law for being related to her husband and I got off the phone.

Then it was a quick call to my older brother to beg off the invitation to share the hotel room with him and then put in a call to the niece to catch her up on the newest wrinkle in the proceedings. We marveled over the strangeness of the behavior of the bride, and the niece caught me up on my mothers latest wheeze. Mom had decided that my older brother, who lives an hour and a half away from his parents should drive up to my parents house and then drive them all to the wedding.

Now the folks are pretty superannuated and it would be unreasonable to expect them to make the drive themselves, but they have my younger sister who is a good driver living with them. Why the old lady decided that they should all have to travel together or why my brother should be expected to drive half way across the state and add in essence 3 hours to his trip is a logic that is only known to my mother.

Therefore I was very pleased to hear that my brother, who usually knuckles under to my parents told the old lady that he was taking the Miata to the wedding and mom v.2 would have to drive them.

There is more to tell but with the wedding, and some photo documentation to come, I will continue to catch up on as much of the story as I can.

Blog block

My brain is behaving like an over stimulated 5 year old. It is running around throwing tantrums and refusing to go to bed and really needs to be sent off for a time out, because it just can't focus.

Goodness knows there is plenty to write about. The wedding follies and the latest atrocities commited by my family. The horrifying behavior of the newly arrived students in Boston. The stupidity of the T here in Boston and the nightmare that is being created by the transition to the Charlie system, not to mention the amount of litter being created by the stupid paper tickets. Some observations on the hazards of socializing. A couple of how did I get myself into this situations that are working themselves out for better or worse and I am sure there is more, but like I said my brain refuses to focus. It is jumping up and down on the sofa and screaming "I won't, I won't, I won't!" So until I can convince it to sit quietly and, well, think I'll just have to settle for posting this photo I took of the early morning sky near the New England Life building. It's about the only time I have ever thought that this particular architectural monstrosity has ever looked good.

It's not your fault

I was reading the news this morning on the internet and this piece leapt out at me. I love this stuff! It's not that we, as a society, are getting lazier and more careless, it's evolution. You have to wonder what the adherents of intelligent design will do with this. God want's you to be the size of a house? I'm sure that we'll hear more about this. Merciful stars, as a friends grandmother used to say.

News in brief

Over the past year I have been making slightly better money, so rather than being abjectly poor, I have been basking in the warmth that is scraping by. What this had meant was that I had been unable to buy new clothes, but now I find that occasionally I actually have a couple of bucks to spend replacing the shabbier occupants of my closet and dresser. To celebrate this happy turn of events I have been working at a wardrobe upgrade. However, since I am still working with a limited budget, I have had to prioritize. What do I most desperately need?

One item has been something of a major focus, though at least for me, not a glamour item. Underwear. This has lead me down the path of trying to find the ultimate in comfy tighty whities. So far my faves have been Nicole Miller trunks. The main problem with them has been, having once found a package a year ago, I have been unable to find them since. I have been led to believe, after some consultation with friends who are much more avid consumers than I am, that it could well be that they were an item for one season and are no longer available at all.

My, how times have changed since the days when it was a choice between Fruit of the Looms and Hanes!

The choices are dizzying but that very fact sets me aback. What to get? There are bikini's and thongs as well as boxer briefs, trunk briefs, briefs, boxer shorts and trunks and hybrids and variations on all of the themes. Low rise vs. regular waist, Y front or button front or no front door at all. For my money one of the most notable improvements is that a lot of undies are now anatomically correct. Gone are the days of underwear that were designed for Ken dolls. A man may now purchase a pair of drawers that are "contoured". In other words it has a cup. It makes sense and also makes you wonder what were people thinking of for all of those years, wearing crotch binding BVD's? For many years in my youth, it was just this problem that had me eschewing underwear entirely and choosing to go commando. I had given boxers a try, but they have a tendency to creep, so that by the end of the day the legs having worked there way up into the crotch of your jeans made you feel as though you had dropped a load in your pants. Now, it would seem a fellow is safe to slip into whatever style of shorts he favors confident in the knowledge that, whatever style he favors, he will be able to make it through a busy day without becoming crotch bound.

With choice however comes responsibility, which brings us to the question of sizes. Should they really be manufacturing XXXL thongs? I think not, but as long as I am not expected to look, should I care? Considering the growing number of land whales, and our politically correct society, where people have tried to sue MacDonald's because they are fat and the victim in question is unable to display any self control, ergo it is the fault of the fast food industry that they have achieved the circumfernce of the Graf Zeppelin, it will only be a matter of time before we revert to the Victorian ideal that tubby is attractive. We just have to feel good about the fact that we are an aneurism just waiting to happen, and that one individual is consuming enough food to keep a small third world nation fed for a year!

As one of the few in this country that grew tired of dragging 25 extra pounds of lard around in my ass I have become a regular habitue of the gym. This has worked out fairly well from my point of view, even to the point of where one of my straight male co-workers commented recently that I have a nice ass. It's good for the ego, but this is all relative. I am 51 and do not have the skin tone that is going to make anyone anxious to see me parading around in a g-string. So does anyone really want to see some weeble in a pair of ultra brief bikini's? God knows the packaging only encourages things. It doesn't matter whether the size is S,M,L,XL or XXL, there is the same picture of the incredibly buff torso assuring you that if you buy this product, this is how you are going to look. I think that as a matter of truth in advertising they should find people who are size appropriate to model for the different sizes. Would a graphic representation of what someone actually looked like do anything to deter inappropriate lingerie purchases? Would it make anyone actually think before they polished off the bag of cheese doodles in front of the TV? Probably not, but since all of the news hubbub about obesity as a health problem seems to have had no effect, and we are becoming ever fatter it might be worth a try. Though don't look to the retailers to encourage you to slim down.

If you have a waist size of 34"+ you're all set. As someone who desperately fought their way down to a 30" there are more days than not that I have to resign myself to the fact that I am not going to be able to find any covering for the southern regions of my person because the smallest size on the rack is a 34 waist. Even when I can find something that will fit me the selection is pretty pathetic. Part of the problem is that I shop in discount stores, and so there are no regular items carried per se. I believe that Marshall's and T.J.'s run on the same principle of outlet stores everywhere, and the items for sale are all overstock. However, unless the less weight encumbered have some jungle drum system that I am unaware of that alerts them to the lastest shipment of clothing in sizes intended for the less cicumferentially challenged, and so alerted descend on the stores stripping the shelves of all things size S, I am inclined to think that the paucity of smaller sizes is due to the fact that what regular retailers are ordering is clothing for the more full figured, because that is where the demand lies.

We give a lot of lip service to "empowering" people. The language is, everybody is special, everyone has something to contribute, we need to love ourselves the way we are. If you expect someone to make some sacrifice, try harder, admit they are just not good at something, or try to evolve and become more than they were yesterday, you are commiting that worst of all crimes these days. You're being judgemental! You are expecting people to mend their ways, take personal responsibility and when called for correct their own mistakes and not expect someone to form a support group for their personal brand of stupidity. So guys, if your underpants can double as a fitted queen sized sheet, don't worry, your just expressing societies failure to provide you with an easy way to be a piggy couch potato and still maintain a robust physique.

I on the other hand, having allowed myself to become a slave of the fitness industry, will just have to struggle on with getting adequate exercise and not stuffing every piece of food that lands in front of me into my face. That said, I am going to head out and see if there are any Labor Day sales going on and try and find a pair of slacks that won't double as a circus tent.