So Noelle C. has revealed her quirks to me. We all know she likes to get very graphic about her descriptions of other people, right down to removing her clothing to prove a point. But this week I've discovered something a tiny bit creepier:
She thinks she and I are twins.
I can see some similarities. I mean, we are both round ladies who live in Wisconsin and work for Dunder Mifflin.
End of the similarities.
However, I wore a top yesterday, and she said she liked it. I thanked her. She then said, "See....I have the exact same clothes in my closet. We are twins!"
Friends, I have no illusions about how I dress. I am business casual for the fluffy girl who recently was told to wear loose clothing due to a skin issue. The words "tailored" and "sleak" are nowhere in my wardrobe descriptions.
That said, I'd like to think there's a tiny bit of difference in the way I dress from that of my older...much older...counterpart.
That aside, there are a few other things that convince me we are not twins, and she's a bit of a whackadoo.
She tells everyone in the office she loves them.
Not the joking, "Hey, I love how you're so hilarious!" No, she tells people this in a serious, eye contact, "I really do love you." Now, it's fine if she wants to cement relations with NBM (she's such a huge fan of his it's sort of funny) and I don't mind when people tell me they love me because I'm funny or efficient or well groomed.
I do, however, wonder about people who tell coworkers they love them...and then tell other coworkers that they told coworkers they love them.
Do you follow me?
Let me construct a sentence: "Sarah, I told NBM yesterday that I love him."
Yeah, why would you share that? No twin of mine would share that.
But creepiest of all is that fact that, and I realize I've opened myself up to this, she feels the need to make "suggestions" about my diet. (This based on her miraculous discovery of the Weight Watchers points recently. However, when she weighed in after 13 weeks and realized she'd only lost 13 pounds eating nothing but dry toast and soup, she fell off the wagon and has since put on a few pounds. Those size 14's aren't fitting so well.)
Yesterday she gave me the tip that put me over the edge and made me realize I had to nip the whole "twin" thing in the bud.
"See, you're just like me," she said, "You have a leaky gut because you don't drink enough breast milk."
Ummmmm, what?
Oh yeah...I hope she never misses.
Apparently she read something (and why is it every nut case reads wild insane medical stuff, but I can't get ten people to buy my books this month?) that the colostrum in mother's milk coats an infant's intestines with tiny little bugs that then speeds the digestive process and makes them poop. "My poops used to be like rabbit turds," says she in my workplace. "Now they are long and huge like a big long rope."
Why is it older women think it's okay to discuss poop in the workplace? Seriously!
She suggested that we both need more (more?) breast milk in our diets and THAT will then cure us of being fat.
"We're exactly the same, you and I," says she.
NO, NO, NO!
On another note, because I know you care, I went to an actual MD doctor yesterday. And wonder of wonders, the man took notes when I spoke and actually touched me (and not in a creepy way) He didn't talk about magic necklaces or unhappy thyroids. Instead, he prescribed a couple things to help with my skin issues (he thinks it's eczema) and I'm to go in for a complete blood work up on Saturday. I already feel better. I did get him to chuckle when I explained Dr. Maime's methods. He also informed me that any diet that completely cut out fruit was not a diet to be followed.
I went home and immediately ate a bowl of blackberries. And it was good!
For those of you new to this blog, and for those of you who haven't been paying attention, I'll catch you up:
Last Saturday I paid a visit to my mother's 300 pound chiropractor/yoga instructor/nutritionist who informed me that I, the fat girl, needed to avoid all sugar, including, and especially: FRUIT. She also informed me that my thyroid was unhappy that I worked at a computer. She of course has a necklace that wards off the evil (her words not mine) rays of computers and cell phones, but she didn't think to offer me one.
So, no candy, no cookies, no cake, and no fruit for me. And no magic necklace to ward off the evil rays and make my thyroid happy.
Something else you should know, if you don't:
Several years ago I was diagnosed with PMDD, which is basically a very high powered form of PMS. Simply put, 2-3 days a month I am driven completely, utterly, and murderously insane by someone's voice. It's always a specific person, like the Evil Bossman. (He who blamed me for the fact that oil was $100 barrel because I, the fat girl, wanted to turn on the AC when the office reached 80 degrees.) More recently it was Elsie's, and now, it is Noelle C's.
Note his collar. His thyroid was probably
unhappy with him, too.
During these couple days, I take some medication (well, medication and CHOCOLATE), but I cannot tolerate the very sound of that specific voice. (I think Edgar Allen Poe may have had...or probably more likely knew...someone with PMDD when he wrote "The Tell Tale Heart.")
I'm sharing that shocking tidbit with you to explain why I've not been terribly active online this past week:
I've been trying very, very hard not to kill anyone while I make it through this week of no sugar and no fruit and a major, completely unexpected, attack of my "pre days."
It has been less than easy.
IT hasn't been much easier when I try to explain to my family members why, the week after Easter, when candy is 70% off and I've bought a truckload of it, I cannot eat it. It' hasn't been easy, spring time in Wisconsin, when the new spring and summer fruits suddenly show up, beautiful and ripe, and all I ache for is a raspberry or a strawberry, or a freakin' glass of ORANGE JUICE.
So tonight, wracked with guilt, a sense of failure, and quite possibly the worst cramps of my life, I saved my family from any anguished scenes of insanity, and I ate four mini Butter finger Eggs.
An egg a day will keep
the crazies away.
And I had a glass of orange juice.
And it was goooooooooooood!
I see Dr. Maime a week from next Saturday. i was supposed to see her next week Thursday, but her assistant Flick couldn't seem to get his head wrapped around her schedule. Was she in Florida this week? Next week? He just couldn't be sure. And neither could she...until last night when he called to see if I wanted to see her tonight.
Uh, no, see Flick, even if I wasn't wrapped around a heating pad...I had other plans. You'd think someone who calls them self and assistant would have someone who calls them self a doctor's schedule better in hand.
Before I see Dr. Maime again, I'm checking in with an actual MD, and gent I've never met before. Most of you recall, my former internal med doc, the one I think looks like Dudley Moore, said that the crippling pain in my hands was because I was old and I had to live with it. Yeah, so I'm very done with him.
This new guy has NO IDEA the level of crazy that's going to hit him next week Wednesday.
I should probably eat another Butter finger egg before I meet him.
CONDA UPDATE:
While I have been slowly, very slowly, losing a pound here and there, it is clear that Conda is crushing me in the weight loss department. So yes, it is harder to lose weight on your own than it is when focused on nothing but weight loss 24/7.
However, in the department of people who don't hate you, I'm, pretty sure I'm winning. Out of the blue, someone I work with announced, "I love Biggest Loser, but I HATE Conda."
Food for thought: Those of you who watched Buddy and Mark walk out in protest...do you think Conda orchestrated the drama just to get everyone thinking the rules of the game where unfair so that everyone would walk...except for her and her brother Jeremy? Because I totally do. She's been behind every minute of game play, drama, and shenanigans since this game started and I believe that she looked at the final five and realized she wasn't going to beat at least the two guys. So she waited until something got leaked about returning players and she worked her magic.
It sort of backfired...because Kim didn't walk and Kim is one of the two guaranteed in the finals. GO KIM!
Let me start by saying I am NOT mocking people with food allergies in this post. I know a lot of people who have legitimate food allergies, and I respect them.
What I am mocking in this post, ultimately, are those who don the name "Doctor" and then spout some wildly weird stuff at you, and part us from our money by putting fancy words to very simple truths.
Oh, and I'm mocking my mother.
My mother, who has been rail thin her entire life, but has been battling my father's weight for almost as long, decided one day to visit her chiropractor. (I'm not mocking chiropractic care. When I have 30 minutes every other day and $30 every other day for ten weeks, I go to a chiropractor myself.) While there, her chiropractor...and woman I'll call Dr. MAMIE, because 1) it rhymes with her real name and 2) It's annoying to me when doctors who don't work with children insist you call them Dr. First Name.
so she went to her chiropractor, and I may never know how it came about, but she emerged from that appointment with fist full of brown glass bottles bearing hand written names of their contents, and a whole new attitude about food and why my father and I need to avoid it.
Since I'm 44 and live in my own house, I tend to not listen to her, but after months of gentle reminding (nagging) she offered to pay for my own very trip to this Dr. Maime who was going to put a vial of corn on my belly button and cure not only my fat, but also my arthritis.
I'm not making this up, this is what she told me.
(At least the Soggy Bottom Boys got $10 to sing into a can.)
So like I said, after several months of gentle reminding, (nagging) I called Dr. Maime's office and spoke to Flick (not his real name, but close enough) who set up an appointment for 8 AM today, Saturday.
8 Am. And Flick said, "BE EARLY."
So I filled out the paperwork, which didn't seem at all interested in my diet, and showed up at 7:45. Flick took my paperwork, and directed me to a room. Where I then sat for 25 minutes.
Making Dr. Maime ten minutes late.
We are not off to a good start.
The other thing I noticed about this nutrition guru, the woman who was currently charging my parents heaven knows what for treatment and for those glass bottle of voodoo, is this:
SHE'S FAT!
Yes, take dietary advice from him.
She's not just fluffy. No, my friends, this woman could be my partner on Biggest Loser. She's MY BEFORE PICTURE.
Now you all know I have long beat the drum of equality for fluffy girls. But there are just some jobs a fluffy girl may not be best suited for. Like a woman shouldn't do those movie voice overs for disaster movie trailers, a fluffy girl should not be billing people's insurance for her dietary expertise.
So after talking to her for several minutes, she says,
"So do you want chiropractic care, or RT?"
I'm not sure what RT is, so I said, "My mother told me you were going to put a can of corn on my belly button and cure my arthritis."
Rather than correcting me for being wrong she said, "Oh, well we are in the wrong room."
Chalk one up to Flick for not listening to me on the phone.
We get to her room and she talks about food and nutrients and how bad the American diet is.
She and I would be a great poster to prove that point.
Then she holds up a rubber band and lubes it up with aloe. She invites me to hoist my shirt and bra while she puts on this "heart monitor."
Then she makes me like completely flat, completely still on a table. Then she makes me stand completely still. She then reads a computer screen (There's a clothes pin on my shirt attached to the computer...it's not touching the rubber band around my boobs, so I'm not exactly sure how my readings to in to the computer.) She then tells me that I'm blocked and switched and my body has no reserves in case I need to move quickly.
Well, I don't know what the first two things mean, but as for the part about no reserves for moving quickly...DUH! I'm old and I'm fat and I have lousy hands and feet. I'm not going anywhere quickly.
So then she removes the rubber band and has me lie on the table. No crossed legs, no touching myself in anyway because she's going to touch me all over and she doesn't want my body confused.
Um....my body might not be confused, but I'm starting to wonder if I should be looking for a hidden camera because it's starting to feel like one of those movies...you know....
She then tells me I have to hold my left arm straight up. Keep holding it that way and she's going to apply pressure, not a lot, but a little and I'm supposed to match her pressure.
Well I do, except it's starting to dawn on me that she's working the algebra problem backwards. She's already pretty sure what she's going to tell me, now she needs to perform a couple magic tricks to prove I need her treatment. First, let's get the fat girl to hold her arm up in the air while she's already uncomfortable lying flat out and let's see how much pressure we can use until her arm falls down.
"Well," says she, "You're definitely blocked, but you can be successfully tested this way. So that's good. Now we need to see how you're switched and what organs are involved."
I came in because my hands hurt.
Then she gets a couple little jars. I can't see them, because I 'm supposed to have my eyes closed. She puts them on my stomach and does the arm test. By this time my left arm is very sore and very tired, so I'm pretty much proving her point simply because I'm uncomfortable and tired. She's touching me in sort of a soft creepy way, not like a medical doctor who would actually, you know, try and put pressure on an organ to see if it's inflamed or something, no she's more just pointing to them and pushing on my arm.
She has me press my right pinky to my thumb for a good part of the test. Not sure what that has to do with it, but it hurt and I informed her of that. She poked my zipper (why, I don't know) and said, "I know. We're almost done."
Uh, if a nutritionist is fumbling around your jeans zipper I'm thinking you ARE DONE.
She then says, like she's a genius, "Do you work near a computer?"
"You know I do. We talked about that."
"Oh well your thyroid doesn't like that."
"My thyroid is going to have to get over it."
"Yes, well, I do have a necklace I wear to protect me from the harmful rays of computers, cell phones, all those waves in the air. I forgot to wear it today."
You also forget to tell me if and where I can get such a magical necklace
Turns out, I have a sensitivity to mercury and cadmium. Now I don't know a human person who DOESN'T have a sensitivity to mercury. And apparently, those three fillings I have in my teeth are part of the reason I'm fat and have arthritis.
Finally, it was over. And, after all that, she was very gleeful in her diagnosis.
"You need to stay away from all sugars."
Well, this isn't a body built by carrots.
"No cookies, no candy, no cake."
Why...so you can have it all? (Sorry, that was mean...still, she's the one telling me what I need to do to lose weight.)
"And no fruit."
Uh...what?
"No fruit. No fruit juices, no fruit."
"Wait," says I, "So it's not corn, it's not gluten. It's sugar."
"No problem with corn at this point."
Right, until she tells my mother who will probably tell her to tell me I have a problem with corn.
"You can have honey, but no other sugars, especially not fruit."
So you heard it hear first America....and other countries. I can eat all the Cheetos I want. But a bowl of raspberries will keep me fat forever.
Darn it...I really want a raspberry!
I'm not taking child rearing tips from
Kate Gosslein either.
