a gift from Abby (m)

Abby was my roommate all four years at Harvard and for one year in Boston.  She's one of my best friends in the world.  Through the years, Abby has had a front-row seat to my struggle with my weight.

When Abby met me in 1973, we were Freshmen, assigned to  an "experimental" dorm...basically, a commune.  Here were the hippies, baking bread and going to market together to get their whole foods. Ted, the freak, tried to sell us hard on being in the commune.  He was wearing Birkenstocks and was covered with flour.   Abby and I took one look at Ted and the group, then at each other, and instantly bonded.  We got transferred to a normal dorm within two months.

Abby liked to play practical jokes, honed from her prep school days.  Being a 12-year veteran of Catholic school, I could not imagine signing someone up to provide milk and cookies for the dorm residents and not show up.  But that's what Abby did....to me. I think I still have the note saying "Twelve angry Binghamites (the name of the dorm hall) were here, looking for their milk and cookies....WHERE WERE YOU??"  I was at the library, unaware of the drama unfolding at my door.

I remember going with Abby to Baltimore for the wedding of our other roommate, Janet, in 1982.  Abby commented that I had changed my hairstyle.  It looked good, she said, but she further commented that I changed my hair alot. Abby hasn't changed her classic--and flattering--hairstlye since she cut her hair when we were in college. 

What's really impressive, however, is that Abby's weight hasn't changed, either.  She looks exactly the same as she did in 1977.  Same weight, same hair, same classic preppy look...jeans, sweater, scarf. 

So I wonder, how must Abby have felt all these years as I morphed from the blue-collar Italian-American scholarship kid who entered college at 145 lbs., ballooned to 170 and then back to 140 while acquiring clogs and the LL Bean french sailor shirt?  That was nothing compared to "Disco M" during the eighties where my weight crept up just a bit, but my hair and jewelry got bigger.  Then there was "Mother M"...the 90's...when I had kids, a stressful job, and built a large house commensurate with my ever-expanding body.

Like all my close friends...Lyn, Mary, Susan (in alpha order)...Abby stood by and watched but never said anything.  It must have killed them to see me spiraling out of control.

Two days ago, Abby came to town.  She lives in California but visits her mother in Maine every few months.  We have a routine.  Abby takes the red eye from San Francisco, lands in Boston, rents a car and meets me for breakfast in Cambridge.  She then drives 4 hours to Maine to see her mother.

This time, Abby had a gift for me.  It was parchment cooking paper and a recipe for fish "en papillote", just like the one I described eating in a recent blog.  Healthy and delicious.  There was also a very stylish red aluminum bottle for my water consumption.

Perfect.