Eat Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow We Diet

This is not good. The encroaching deadline for the New Year's austerity plan is sending me into slight desperation, aka slightly gluttonous mode. (Will I chew on a bone? Do I dare to eat a peach? Will I have the willpower to walk along the beach?)

I think of all the things I'd like to eat before I go into relative starvation mode on January first, or maybe second. I've got to have one of those turkey club hoagies from the market down the road. And a double chocolate brownie from their brownie case. Really should run out to that place on the edge of town for that great eggnog they serve every year. Never did make my chocolate pinwheel cookies this year, there's still time! Won't have time to eat them all, and my kids and neighbors are all away, so I'll have to freeze some- but to defrost when? Will it ever end? Will I ever be free?

Oh good, for two more days I'll have croutons on my salad and put sugar in my coffee. I'll make hot chocolate for breakfast. May as well put sweetened whipped cream in it. And have an English muffin with butter and jam. It's been ages since I had a bagel with cream cheese- forgot to eat that over the holiday, better eat one soon! There will be crackers and great cheese, and pasta. My shopping list is growing. Only two days left. Oh lord, I'm going to have to get an extension on this- and of course there's noone to grant an extension, except me. So that's easy. Maybe I should work on my spiritual side first, join a class or something, and let my body catch up later. Why must it be so true what they say about a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips? Maybe I need til January third to reign in my impulses and start anew.

I'm healthy, and not fat, but four or five pounds got the best of me over the holiday season, thanks to letting down the guard on carbs. But once the shell of self-discipline cracks, I get those old hungers of youth, those midnight cravings. Let a little sugar in and it's ok. Honey on the oatmeal, ok. But eat four or five pieces of chocolate after a crown roast of lamb with swiss chard-gruyere potatoes, and it's a done deal, the appetites are stirred: a little primeval signal goes off, and I'm in ferocious hunting mode once more. Ready to fall to the floor with the dogs and their bones. Well not really, and not exactly grovelling and snorting at the trough, but let's face it, there's an ancient carnivorous and gluttonous instinct of some kind, that rises up in most of us from time to time. Let's get at it!

Ascetism and austerity have their virtues, but holiday feasting has been heavenly. Ive been blessed - my children and friends are fantastic cooks and I'm not so bad myself, when the spirit's willing. So here's to the next few days...lift a glass and enjoy milk and honey and the fat of the land. There's a time for everything under the sun, we're told.