atonement (lyn)

Meet Debbie.  Five feet tall, blond, and 111 pounds (she later tells me).  I am sitting next to her while getting a manicure after Temple.  Alexander tells me that G-d must be cringing since it is Yom Kippur.  I don't have a magazine to read so I engage the 60ish woman next to me in conversation.  After trading book recommendations, we somehow get on to Weight Watchers and Debbie's a lifetime member.  The number of people who at some point in their lives have been on it surprises me.  Anyway, Debbie "needs" to lose 5 pounds as her clothes don't fit.  She offers advice on the foods she likes that are low in points.  I never ever would have thought that talking about weight loss could be an icebreaker.  Though I must admit, I was hoping that when I told Debbie I was on Weight Watchers she would have looked at me astonished and said, "You!  You're kidding."  She didn't.  I get home and my son asks, "Are you happy with your manicure?" "Yes," I reply, to which he quips, "Well, I'm sure G-d isn’t.” This is my punishment for asking him to (a) fast until sundown and (b) do a practice PSAT test.

At 4:12 we are on a train to Rye to break fast with family.  I am starving and hope I can keep to my strategy of eating in moderation.

It's 9:05 pm; I'm now back home, and I didn't do horribly tonight.  I anticipated the bagel-lox-cream cheese combo but was unable to resist the creamed herring and egg salad appetizers, though I did skip the crackers, knowing I couldn't eat just a couple. I was also lucky to sit next to food-conscious Adam, my 28-year-old gorgeous nephew who is running this year in the New York City Marathon.  Knowing that I'm on a diet, he made eating even one cookie too unappealing, so I just had fruit for dessert.  "If you tell everyone you're on a diet, then you can't then have a cookie."  He even moderated my cream-cheese intake.  "Here, this is all you get," he says as he passes me the cream cheese.  And Jill, my brother-in-law's sister (who hosted tonight) gave me a scale (a really great electronic one-she happened to have an extra one).  I'm still afraid that having a scale in the house may cause me to weigh-in too often, but if I try really hard not to, I think I might find the scale motivating, assuming the numbers are going in the right direction.