Back in the Pink

Today I feel great and maybe it was the advice I got here from others who understood just how bummed out you can get over the early darkness. Or the fact that I turned out to be totally wrong in thinking my cardiologist said I should lose weight when I last saw him two years ago. I saw him again yesterday and he insists he said no such thing. “Anyway it’s clear you didn’t listen!” he smiled and I smiled too since I’m now a whopping ten pounds heavier than I was then.So maybe I should feel all downcast but…. I don’t somehow. Anyway I did listen to him about exercise. It took two full years to build the habit but I now go to the gym three times a week – AND I’ve just begun pounding that old treadmill up in the attic.So I’ll make it back, right? Maybe I just had to hit bottom weightwise. (What does it mean if you can look around and actually SEE your fanny rounding a corner?) My heart is healthy and I aced the echo test and if it weren’t for some upward-creeping cholesterol I’d be in the pink. (But I don’t EAT cheese or chips or ice cream! It isn’t my fault, God!)The doctor is thinking statins – or, he says I can take something called Red Yeast Rice and see what happens  if I crank up the exercise too.I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever he says to keep on keepin’ on.In the meantime I have this early dark thing down. I’m totally dead by 8pm so I’ve just been going up to our room and getting in the bed and who turns out to be there but Old Dave, the original Lying Down Man himself! With the lights out by 10 it’s no problem at all for a person to be up again at 5 and posting super-dull stuff about her health. :-)I do wonder though: must we put in one feelin'-really-down day for every feelin'-great one? And who decides what kind of day we have really? Is it  our hormones? Our limbic system? Or is that big Screenwriter in the Sky who likes to keep the suspense up reel to reel?I distorted this picture to make me look really wide. It’s supposed to be an incentive.Here’s a picture of the kind of food I haven’t touched since my 15^th birthday and which now I’ll never get to touch again.Sayonara, greasy comfort food. Vegetarian Ninja Monkworld here I come!