confessions of a visitation junkie

Forgive me Weight Watchers, for I have sinned. It's been four days since my last confession, and five days since I was on an elliptical machine.

So I re-started Weight Watchers about a month or so ago, and I felt like I was doing pretty well and feeling in control of things. I had lost about 8 lbs., was feeling less famished all the time and had an exercise regimen in place and I was actually DOING it.

Then the Thriller landed.

The Thriller is my best friend from college. I will refrain from using her real name here so as to protect her identity, but suffice it to say that she and I have had some WILD times together. This was a quick visit, her first trip away from home since having her daughter 14 months ago. She needed the break and I needed the company of someone who truly knows me--someone besides the person with whom I nightly share my bed.

So this is how it went, food wise. I may be a little fuzzy here as I'm still recovering.

Friday: Pick up T. at airport. Drive to favorite neighborhood watering hole. Proceed to drink four pints of stone pale ale, eat two fried spring rolls and a half a veggie panini. Another friend, K, shows up. Around 11 we head back to my house to see our new kitchen. Another pint, this time a Moose Drool (my fave) brown ale. Quick nachos with salsa reds and chedder melted in oven. Occasional chip with hummus. Smoke fatty. Smoke cigarettes. Bad bad bad. But oh so good. Bed at 2 a.m. I am NEVER up that late. Never.

Saturday: Up at 9. Begin making famous whole wheat banana bread (no white sugar) with chocolate chips on top. Once in oven, T. and I head for the bagel shop. Baker's dozen, two tubs of cream cheese. Back at the house, mow (rhymes with sow) on said bagels, onion and chive cream cheese, smoked salmon that T. sent for christmas. Scramble eggs, add green onion and mozzarella. We are FULL. Banana bread cools on rack. Run errands, including grocery store. Buy fixin's for pork green chili, which I will make with the roasted chili peppers I bought last summer and froze. Fresh (evil) flour tortillas. T. makes a huge vat of guacamole. Finish off bottle of Tinto 2002 while cooking--T. gets in the beer again. Watch Dave Chappelle's first season (highlight: R. Kelly spoof and the song "Piss on You") and eat bowl of chili with tortilla, side of refrieds (does the fact that they're veggie count?) and guac. Dessert: thin mints. Flashback to grocery store earlier in the day-- little girl scouts in their kelly green sashes chanting "girl scout cookies, three dollars a box!" over and over again. Note to self at the time: this is prime found sound to be dubbed into a horror film. Also might make great Moby tune when mixed with deep groove. T. buys five boxes when I'm not looking.

Sunday: Up at 8. T. can't sleep in because her biological clock is set to baby time. Breakfast: more bagels, more cream cheese, more salmon. Slice of banana bread with one of four cups of coffee. T.'s plane leaves at 3:20. We lounge. T. begins her first beer at 11. She drinks that and close to 3 more before we leave the house at 2. I imbibe in a pale ale just for kicks around noon. We drop off T. then head out on a sunday drive adventure--me with topo maps in my lap, S. driving, Daisy Mai Pickles in the back. Stop at Barn Store in Hudson and buy beef jerky, pretzels, and some of that sweet hot trail mix with the boston peanut-y things in it. Drive aimlessly for miles. Take lots of pix, like the two here. Get home around 5...by 6:30 we're ordering chinese. Moo goo gai pan for me, because it's listed as "on the lighter side" on the menu and I like it...brown rice...oh, three veggie (fried) spring rolls and two crab cheese wontons. We watch The Constant Gardener. It's sad. I'm full. Dammit.