Size deflation

This has absolutely nothing to do with the post, but the picture is soooo cute, how can I resist? Ollie in his first Halloween costume

Yesterday Rob and I had a near-perfect day. We spent a fun day eating out, shopping, taking the dogs to the beach and eating out again. I had a chance to do a little clothes shopping at the Newbury Park Loehmanns, which is closing, sadly, and I had the wonderful experience of realizing that size 10 pants are too loose. I've outgrown all of my pants, which are starting to look clown-like, and I wanted to find a couple of pairs of pants to take me through the last leg of my weight loss.

What I'm finding so weird is that womens' clothings sizes have changed since the last time I was in the neighborhood. When I was a teen, I generally wore a size 10, which was good for my 5'9" frame. Size 10s were more or less cut to accommodate a 37-38-inch butt. These days, according to the sizing charts a size 10 accommodates a 40-41 inch butt. They've also added size 0 and 00, which would be necessary to take the place of the slots formerly occupied by 2s and 4s. So basically my 8 is an old 12, the 10 is a 14, 12 are 16s and 14s are 18s. What's weird is that because men's pants are based on inches, and they haven't changed last I checked -- you won't be able to take your size 8 butt and stuff it into 28-inch jeans. The old rule of thumb was that a 30 waist approximated a size 10. No more, I guess.

How odd. Have we gotten so fat, that clothing manufacturers have had to adjust their sizing charts to make us feel better? Women's clothing manufacturer Chico's has taken the entire concept even further, having plus sizes labeled 1, 2, and 3 with half-step increments. And then there's the practice of adding a W to the size, so you have a size 12W, which is what? A delusional 16?

Sadly, unless I switch to the metric system, the bathroom scale isn't enabling me, so the number remains, while ever-smaller, still big enough to keep me working. Until then my pants size is an 8. Wooo! Woooo! Next step: nudging the scale into the "normal" BMI range ...

Rosy hopes for tomatoes

This could be our year ...

While I brag endlessly about our wonderful weather here in Ventura where it's rarely too hot or cold and the most we can complain about is fog, the one thing I've never been able to do is grow tomatoes. It only gets really hot here a few times a year, if that. We actually haven't had temperatures above 90 for years now, which is great for me, but not so muhc for tomatoes.

I've tried various varieties, even those advertised as being better in warmer climates, and I get a few tomatoes, but the plants tend to be prone to wilting and they die off easily. I've moved them all around the yard in the hopes that there would be a perfect spot for them, but no dice.

Eventually I put them by the back fence because it was one of the sunniest spots int he yard and as they matured, I noticed that they seemed to be being eaten from the bottom up. We moved them again and tried putting them in the middle of the year, but we discovered we had tomato worms, which are big green caterpillar looking bugs that eat the whole plant.

Last year we bought one of those upside-down planters. We didn't get the cheap Topsy-Turvy kinds. Oh no. we went and bought the expensive plastic dealie that said we could grow four plants. We planted them and then on the top part, we planted some other small peppers and basil plants, just like in the picture.

This is what we learned: Tomatoes don't LIKE to grow upside down. They get wet all the time, which promotes more wilting and fungus and they weren't very prolific.

This year we were feeling pretty defeated about the whole issue. We didn't even bother to buy plants until late June and then we only bought two. This time I tired something radical. One of the best tomato crops I ever grew was in Ohio the first year I ever grew them and I just dumped a bunch of topsoil down and grew them in that. I figures why not try the same concept and we piled a bunch of bags of garden soil, top soil and some compost in the middle of the sand pit we have leftover from our dismantled swimming pool.

We stuck them in, put the cages around them and waited. And they did absolutely nothing. they would blossom, but each and every blossom would fall off the plants. By th end of July, we'd resigned ourselves to another year of tomato failure. I noticed that a bunch of leaves were yellowing suddenly and stripped them all off because if I had to look at barren plants, they didn't have to look all yellow and ugly.

Then we noticed something. There appeared to be a tiny tomato coming out on one of the plants. Soon there was another little baby tomato on the other plant. Pretty soon they were busting out all over. Now we have more tomatoes -- more than 40 -- than we ever have before. I compulsively pick off any yellowing leaves, which is keeping the plants happy, and Rob has been putting eggshells around the plants. We cut back the loquat branches so now there doesn't seem to be anything around to eat the tomatoes.

We've got our hopes up, but we've been burned before. There are numerous critters out there more than willing to cash in on our crop. But maybe, just maybe this is the year of the tomato.

More CSA

I've been terribly busy, so for now will list what we've picked up by week:

Week 2
avocado, potatoes, onion, garlic, collard greens, cucumber, flowers, tomatoes, basil, cherry tomatoes

Week 3
collard greens, eggplant, flowers, peppers, squash, tomatoes, basil, cherry tomatoes, an apple, shallot, cucumber, flowers, carrots, bell peppers, assorted peppers

Week 4
potatoes, collard greens, garlic, cucumber, flowers, carrots, bell peppers, assorted peppers, including hot peppers, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, basil, apples


So far I've been making lots of gazpacho, pesto, tomato sauce. I used the first apple in a curried chicken salad with pecans. I've also been making watermelon salad with basil, feta, cucumber and tomato, which has been dinner for a few nights. I just love the tastes of summer. I have yet to tackle the peppers, which I'll roast and freeze, although a few are crying to be turned into chile rellenos.

CSA -- Week 1

Inside the bins there were potatoes, a bag of tomatoes and beans, cucumbers, a big bag of basil leaves, onions, green peppers, chard, collard greens and an assortment of squash.

Food ready to go at the Farmer & the Cook. You get the contents of a bin and then some peaches, zinnias, garlic and a basket of cherry tomatoes.

We split the bounty in half, except for the basil and tomatoes, which I used to make sauces we'll divide.

CSA project: The adventure begins

I've been intrigued by CSAs or Community Supported Agriculture for a while. The way most CSAs work is you pay a monthly fee to a farm or cooperative, usually around $100 to $150 a month and each week you get a box of fresh, seasonal produce. While this sounds like a wonderful idea, there is something daunting about a huge box full of stuff that I need to make use of before another week rolls around and I have to go through the entire process again. Besides it's just my husband and me these days, and we really don't need very much food. After all, it would defeat the entire purpose if I were to toss a large portion of what I get each week.

Then I had an idea. My youngest daughter, who lives just down the road from me, just had her first baby and she and her husband are concerned about eating a diet with lots of fresh, organic vegetables and fruits. We could share the contents of our weekly boxes, and, just maybe enjoy a bonding experience as we work to figure how to manage this new responsibility/challenge/opportunity.

For the next few weeks or months, I'm going to chronicle our adventures as we head to the Farmer & the Cook in Ojai, which not only has a spectacular vegetarian restaurant, but also grows fresh produce in surrounding fields. Steve Sprinkel of the Farmer & the Cook has agreed to participate in the project.

Lindsay and I are planning to get our box, which we will sort through, and create recipes and other creative ways to use our bounty. And if all else fails and there are leftovers despite our best efforts, we'll be contributing it to our local food pantry Project Understanding, along with any of the extra vegetables I'm growing in our backyard.

Counterproductivity tips

Someone posted some "productivity tips" complete with extraneous quotation marks from some nice-looking gray- haired lady, whose mane was sprayed and molded into one of those helmet-hair styles that I will always eschew, as I do most of her advice. She was offering tips for freelancers, which the more I thought about it, the more I found it to be so far off the mark that it started a whole train a thought. Climb aboard and enjoy the ride.

One of the pearls of wisdom my iron-coiffed scribe offered was the need for people to dress for work each day to be professional. She especially made note of the necessity of wearing shoes. Seriously? Shoes make you more productive? Why the hell might that be? The strapping on of some supportive leather with a rubberized sole will really make you crank out that work. The columnist asserts that people can tell in your voice what you are wearing.

Frankly, I'm pretty sure I have no idea (thank God) from anyone's voice what they might be wearing (or not.) I tend to be pretty uncertain about any aspect of their physical appearance. Although, like most of us, I love to make mental images of people I speak with regularly and delight in comparing the real-life versions with my imagined images. I'm really not interested in what anyone is wearing during my phone interviews and I'm pretty certain you can't tell from my voice whether I'm wearing sweats or a ball gown.

Another useless tip was to set office hours. I've noticed a lot of office hours being applied to journalists lately and all I can say is the people who are doing this are obviously NOT journalists. Journalism is the last profession that is 9 to 6 or 8 to 5 or any other business-day centered enterprise.

In the real world of trying to get in touch with people on a daily basis and trying to arrange to get together for interviews or for meetings, you'll find that the schedule is erratic. Some days can run from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. Some days can start around 11 a.m. and wind down around 3 p.m. Ours is a reactive world. We follow people around and report on what they are doing and they tend to do things any old time. Anyone who is a real journalist will not be able to do the job effectively within an 8 to 5 framework.

Another tip was to make sure friends and family don't impose on your apparent lack of a schedule. Again this is old-fashioned talk. Most of us in my family work odd hours. Some of us are in the news business; others work at restaurants. Others are students. We work evenings. We work weekends. We work whenever we get paid, so we get together whenever we can. This means we'll have a barbecue in the middle of a weekday -- because we'll all be working Saturday night.

If I have work to do, I have no problems letting people know, and I go and do my work. I'm lucky that I've always been able to focus no matter what mayhem is occurring around me. The most recent example of this was Lindsay's baby shower, which I had already scheduled when I found out I had to cover the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. I pretty much had to punt the party to Lindsay's mother-in-law Dorothy, Dena, Shelby, Amber, Janine, Jessie, Gen, Kaia and Lindsay and everyone pitched in and got everything set up and the food -- assorted frozen Trader Joes treats -- heated and plated.

When I came running in the door to a clean house filled with flowers artfully arranged by Dorothy and with people being served mocktails by Amber, I was delighted. As I sat at my computer in the dining room typing my story, people were being served all around me. "Oh the food is wonderful," they'd say. "Oh please make sure you get enough," I'd reply as I frantically searched through my notes to find out how to spell a source's name.

Even as the party continued, I had to keep answering editor's insightful questions such as, (names have been changed) when you say,"Irina Gonzalez and mom Juana Maria," do you mean Irina's mother? (Um, yeah.) Or when you say the giraffe, cow, goat, horse and piggy banks do you mean that the giraffe, cow and horse were all banks too (that would be the point of those commas separating the words connected with the word "and," which last I checked was how your write a sentence in English).

Nonetheless, I managed to whip up the Boston Cream cupcakes and berry vanilla trifle with the help of Tracy, Gen and Lindsay and we had a great time at the shower with a bunch of different people who have been very important to us over the years as we've made our lives in Ventura.

The long and short of it is I work when I have to work and I play when I have to play. As time goes on the stream of both aspects are sometimes difficult to disentangle. Because I'm a freelance writer I can do things like ask the lady at the animal rehabilitation facility in Simi Valley if it would be alright for my 8-year-old niece, who loves animals, to come along to see what an individual woman with a passion can accomplish.

Last night I had to follow the fire up by the Ventura landmark Two Trees, but while I was driving over to the east side of town and tracking down firefighters for interviews, I was also stopping at the local Vons and making a pasta bake dinner with garlic bread, salad and banana cream pie (store made) for dessert for Ollie, Lindsay and Ryan (and Rob). I managed to update the story and get the information in the newspaper about the hapless teen who set the fire, while preparing and enjoying a delicious dinner (if I may say so myself) with Lindsay, Ryan and Rob.

When I spend the morning around a bunch of wild horses and burros being adopted and heading off to new homes or go from festival to festival at the beach. When I spend a quiet foggy morning on Lake Casitas with exuberant 5th graders watching fawns eating at the shore, I'm doing something I would enjoy whether I was being paid to write about it or not, so often it's hard to tell when the fun ends and the work starts. I've decided that right now I work all the time and I play all the time, it's just a matter of degree.

The final tip was to make sure to remember to do enough work and to create balance. I finally had to agree with the author, the balance thing is tricky. It is tempting to work all the time. But I don't have any problems at all with the motivation thing. If I don't work, I don't get paid, so every waking minute is spent figuring ways to get more work, and thus more money. And everything I do, I do with an eye to writing a story that I can sell.

Sometimes I wish there was a little more cushion, but as far as my work, it's making me a much better reporter. Because I work on a piecework basis, which is the direction journalism is heading, I rush to crank out stories. Not for me the in-depth investigations into the county's groundwater supplies or the deep analyses of the municipal or college district budgets in Ventura County to see where the money is really going, and that is a real shame for the people of Ventura County if that kind of writing gets short shifted.

I do have some workday routines, such as a no-television-during-the-day-rule. But I use the flexibility to my advantage. I can do an interview at 7 in the morning or 11 at night because it doesn't matter what I'm wearing and I can sneak a nap in anytime I need one. I can go outside and garden while I want for people to return my phone calls. My yard has never looked better. My dogs and cats get constant attention, except for being put outside in the yard if they're being particularly vocal. I can make meals that need to cook for hours and elaborate dishes that require many steps that I can stagger between stories.

It's a good life overall and I love the freedom I have to chase the great stories around me. But I've always been averse to rules, finding them constricting and stifling more than they are beneficial. I suppose I do operate by some rules, but they tend to be more amorphous, like always keep learning and trying to improve. Figure out how much you need to do and then try to figure a way to give a little more than that. Be honest and try to respect the people who entrust you to present their stories in the most objective, fair manner possible. But I assure you, I will not be wearing shoes during the day and there will be no counterproductive work schedule.

Courtney and me

Courtney and me
Originally uploaded by Princey's pics

This was taken right after I had Courtney on June 24, 1978, during a visit by my dad and Joyce to see Briggs, the baby and me. It was one of their last visits as a married couple. It's a bit shocking to see how young I was. I ran into a friend and we were saying how we look back at our young selves and remember how we felt fat and ugly. I can't even remember being this young, but I can tell you exactly how much I weighed.

No ... in

I've lost a lot of weight in the past year, and while I still have a way to go before I hit my goal weight, the change is dramatic. So dramatic that it's starting to rattle me a bit. It's not just that everyone I see these days has something to say; I have to expect that. When you see someone who's lost 55-plus pounds, you tend to comment.

People are kind. There's a lot of 'you always looked great,' but c'mon, we know I didn't. We're just not allowed to say it. (Although some people have. There was the one woman I interviewed after a year who kept going -- in front of a bunch of other people -- "You've lost weight. I mean a lot of weight. I mean a bunch of weight." Um. Yes I have. Thanks?)

Like most women I always struggled with my weight. I have a genetic predisposition to weight gain, but if I were to be honest, I just let myself go. I got tired of counting calories and obsessing over each bite that went into my mouth. Plus I am fantastic cook. I say this without modesty because I love my cooking and it matters not a whit to me if anyone else does or not -- although I'm always happier when people do like my food, of course.

So sometime in my mid 30s I threw in the towel. The resulting overindulgence over the years led to a substantial weight gain. I went from being able to cover the lumps and bumps with kicky, fun fashionable clothes, to large sweaters to contrast with what I hoped was a smaller person and finally to dark, plain clothing that didn't call attention to itself or the big woman underneath it.

I wasn't happy and every time I caught sight of my reflection, I would cringe. I wasn't the kind of person who wore weight well. It swelled my features and made my face ugly to my eyes. That big bulky woman was an affront to me. Sadly she was me.

I lost weight from time to time and would make a real run at regaining my former shape, but something would always happen and before you know it I was topping the charts yet again. I wasn't at my top weight, but nowhere near my desired weight, and I avoided scales, reflective windows and mirrors.

Then I got hit by a truck while I was riding my bike across the street in a marked crosswalk. I always tried to keep physically active no matter how heavy I got. I ended up rupturing my posterior tibial tendon, which left me with a titanium rod through my ankle and my foot screwed on just a little off-center. The doctor was really proud of his 10-degree angle, but my foot was never at a 10-degree angle to start with. Now I can hardly buy shoes because my heel goes in normally, but the front of my foot is scewed out to the right. I have to wear a heavy support stocking on that calf because the foot swells if I stand on it too long.

If that weren't enough, my left knee was claimed by osteoarthritis. The doctor -- a different one than the first, but it's managed care and you get as little as they can get away with -- tried arthroscopic surgery with disastrous results. I've since read that arthroscopic surgery is beyond useless with arthritis. In my case it caused a runaway reaction where inflammation froze the knee. So at 53, I found myself getting a total knee replacement.

The arthritis is raging through my body these days. The other knee is in bad shape and my hips cause constant pain. Besides anti-inflammatories and pain killers, so I can sleep at least until the aches wake me, there isn't much medical science has to offer, besides replacing the joints as they collapse.

There is, however, one big thing I can do to make it better and put off the day when I have to get more joints replaced.

I can lose weight.

Trust me, if you ever have the misfortune to have to have a joint replaced, you will understand that where other motivations have failed, the specter of having to go thought that torture again has worked.

So I embarked on an Atkins-derived diet where I eat lots of proteins, eschew sugar and carbs for the most part. I eat lots of veggies and make sure I have a piece of fruit or two on hand. I've found I can have as much fun working my way through the various varieties of tangerines at the farmers market as I used to working my way through carryout.

I was watching Jeff Garlin the other night and he's lost a lot of weight making what he calls "lifestyle changes." I don't want to be negative, but I wouldn't be surprised to find him in a couple of years right back where he was a la Oprah. I say this because he has put himself into such a draconian diet where he never, ever allows himself sugar or alcohol or any other treats, that he will snap.

I allow myself occasional treats (although alcohol is an absolute no-no), but my new creed (and we'll see how long I last)is moderation. I stick with the low-carb, protein and veggie diet for the most part. But I'm allowed one meal a week to eat what I want. I work at not pigging out, but just enjoying eating until I'm comfortable.

I'm also big on bites. I'm allowed a bite of almost anything. But it's just that, a bite. I try to squeeze in as much excitement and appreciation into that one taste as I used to get in eating the whole danged box of treats. I also taste with my eyes. I look at forbidden foods and imagine how they would taste and feel as I ate them -- the icy sweet-tartness of the lemon gelato or the creamy richness of the mint truffle -- after all the actual physical process of eating is fleeting, so if you savor the moment mentally, you can avoid the lasting effects physically.

It's paid off. Now I feel as though I'm a different person, and from the way people react to me, I am a different person. I would love to rail about how unfair it is for people to judge me on my size. I would love to be able to complain that it's staggering how people react differently to the new, thin me.

But I'm as guilty of those judgments as anyone. I'm the one who has been deleting all photos of myself for the past 20 years. I'm the one who recoiled with revulsion at my reflected image. Ask Oprah, no one hates their fat self more than the fat person.

Yesterday, though I got thrown for a loop. I was interviewing two old guys about a statue they are putting in at Marina Park. One of them immediately said on meeting, "You're a pretty thing!". The other kept telling me how pretty I was and they kept flirting and fluttering around like two schoolboys. I haven't been the object of anyone's desire for so long -- no matter how old -- I was totally thrown for a loop.

I'm still overweight, but now I'm closing on on the maximum BMI before I cross back into the "normal" range. I've dropped a couple of sizes and the size I'm in now is starting to get a little loose. It is easier to walk and my foot isn't swelling as much as it used to. My right knee seems to be holding up well and doesn't hurt.

But no matter what the health benefits, the greatest joy comes when I go to the Loehmann's open dressing room where I can try on some really cute clothes and know they look fantastic on my increasingly long-legged, tall and no longer big and operatic body.

And I'm still the same person. Or am I?

Layoffs suck, but maybe ...

It's been a bad couple of weeks at my old employer and current client the Ventura County Star. They've laid off about 19 people, including the entire copy desk, which is being consolidated in Corpus Christi, Texas. I don't want to speak to the foolishness of a business model that calls for reducing and degrading content, but I would like to say that while I'm not a platitude kind of gal -- ask people living through the devastation of Haiti whether God gives them more than they can handle -- this really can be an opportunity to re-examine and reassess yourself and what you're doing with your life.

After my personal experience of leaving the Star almost five years ago, I was able to stop and figure out what I wanted to do. It wasn't easy and there were some false starts. I was going to try to open a day care back in 2007 and even went through all the expense and hassle of getting licensed, only to be hit by a truck while riding my bike the day I placed my first ad on Craigslist. My long recuperation made watching children impossible.

Looking back, it's probably best because the economic downturn has led to a marked decrease in need for child care. So I decided to keep plugging at being a freelance writer, which had always been my dream. But it wasn't until early 2008 that I got my first freelance jobs. I was contacted out of the blue to do some fact checking for a Sunset Magazine project and Julie Price at the Ventura County Star (who was laid off today) took a chance and let me start to write for her.

Since then, I've been able to establish myself as a writer with -- I hope -- a reputation for fairness, accuracy and reliability. The work has been our lifeline as Rob struggles with the aftermath of losing the sight in his eye and his subsequent lack of vision. Not only that, I love what I'm doing. I love going to people's homes and finding out about their lives and trying to convey their unique stories in a newspaper article. I love going to events around the county. I even love long, boring city budget meetings.

There's no job security and you only make money if you work, so it's kind of a piece-work approach to journalism. But I have my freedom and can spend my days in my lovely home with my doggies (even if they aren't so wonderful when they all start barking and I'm conducting an interview.) The anxiety level is always high -- worrying about making enough money and getting a steady stream of work. Overall, though, I love it.

Perhaps my fallen comrades will be able to stop and figure out what it is they have always wanted to do with their lives and find a way to accomplish that. While newspapers are struggling, the need for qualified, competent journalists has never been greater, as people develop an insatiable thirst for information.

I'm not smart enough to have figured out a business model for how the brave new world of journalism is going to make money. But I do know that the more you cannibalize your product, the closer you teeter toward failure. I also know that the mindless pursuit of unrealistic profit margins is not a long-term way to succeed.

I'm heartbroken for my colleagues and hope they will be able to begin new lives with perhaps a more realistic sense of priorities -- knowing that no company or corporation is worth selling your soul for ever again. It's time to reflect deeply; when you daydreamed as a kid what did you imagine yourself doing? I'm not talking about the pie in the sky dreams -- you're never going to be Spiderman -- but the ones of having your own family, living in a nice home, accomplishing some small success, making the world a better place.

Maybe you have creative aspects of yourself you've never pursued. Maybe you always had a passion for something --environment, outdoors, art history, marine biology, animal rights activism; now is the time to pursue the passion.

The most important and most palliative thing is whatever you decide to do -- start painting, become a big Brother or Big Sister, learn to surf -- whatever it is, get out of yourself. From personal experience, the worst times of my life have been when I get so consumed with my misery, I can barely function. There are a million volunteer groups, hobbies, subjects that all need to be explored. And if you get lucky, you just might find yourself getting paid for doing what you love.

The old gray mare

This whole aging thing has got me perplexed

Kids playing at Boccali's

Christmas came and went way too fast, especially considering that we were able to spend part of the holidays with Courtney, Dave and the boys.

Despite technological advances that have allowed us to do such things as video chat with the boys, which makes our faces and voices familiar to them, it's still hard to be this far away. Especially because they're so young and are growing up so fast.

Still it's obvious they're getting to know us bit by bit. Cody reminds me so much of my brother Rodger, not only in looks, but also in his goofy, loud way. Alex is smart as a whip and has a will of iron. They're both so sweet and loving, which is a sign that they're loved.

I ran around each day making sure I spent time with Courtney and the boys (I don't really worry about Dave). We had a great time, but it's all over now and all the stuff has been packed away and we're back to our old schedule.

I love this whole grandmom gig, though. It's a great perspective to be in the old, wise role even if I'm nowhere near there myself. The whole baking cookies and doing fun things part is fantastic.

Tracy came over a few weeks ago and looked around and said, "It looks so empty without all the Christmas stuff. Don't you miss it?" And I do, especially now that I'm a grandmom.