We partied like it's 2016

Well, we survived and MadMax is now officially a high school graduate. Enormous graduation party, beloved house guests and RV guests, graduation ceremony, three and a half hour shift at the all-night senior party (that ended with me home and unable to sleep at 3 a.m.), and finally sending PellMel and house/RV guests off this morning.

Now I've proceeded to the collapsed-on-the-couch-like-a-truck-ran-over-me part of the weekend (I'm writing this on Sunday). Emotional rollercoaster times twelve. Expect no coherent thoughts in this post.

When MadMax was two, we moved across town to a neighborhood full of kids. They rode the school bus together, hunted for Easter eggs, decorated their bikes for fourth of July parades, fought and made up, grew apart and back together and apart again.

We moved out of the neighborhood (but still close by) a couple of years ago, and another family moved across town, but we're still friends. So when a bunch of them were all graduating the same weekend, we decided to band together and throw one big graduation party Friday night.

You probably know me well enough to know that parties are not my thing. But sometimes you have to do it, and when you're splitting up the work (and the expenses) between six different families, really it's not so bad.

We had it here since we have access to the biggest stretch of flat area for a crowd. My cousin was keeping a head count, and at one point we had 85 people here. Since there was quite a bit of coming and going, probably at least 100 people stopped by.

The amazing thing is, it was fun. The weather was spectacular, the food was great, there were kids from grade school through college tearing all over the yard, chasing frisbees and soccer balls and each other. After all the worrying I'd done, it was the most amazing thing.

Then there was their graduation ceremony, which was a bit too long-- have you ever been to one that wasn't? -- but otherwise joyously celebratory. I told you that MadMax was co-valedictorian, which is true, but because of the way they calculate GPA at their school, there were about a dozen valedictorians, so he didn't have to give a speech (much to his relief, he sadly inherited his mother's aversion to public speaking).

In the afternoon we went to another dear friend's party, then took my cousin and her husband up to Glacier NP for ice cream and a stroll along Lake MacDonald. Then I did my shift at the all-night community-wide senior party and came home and tried to get some sleep. Then this morning, PellMel drove off to get back to her studies, and my cousin and her spouse drove off to California, and I collapsed on the couch.

Where I may stay for days.

The Party. This was early on before it got crowded.

a bunch of amazing seniors

MadMax and PellMel

in the midst of pomp and circumstance

I have the most nutty week happening. Graduation is Friday and you can imagine. We are so proud of co-valedictorian MadMax, and also so happy that we will be celebrating with friends and family. All the hugs, and I will be back next week-- maybe I will even throw privacy to the winds and post a graduation picture or two.

I'm writing this on Memorial Day, so I'm also taking a moment to remember all those who serve our country, putting their own safety at risk to ensure ours. Thank you.

7ToF: the small screen, the fox, and the always looming pot luck disaster

1. The TV is frequently on at our house, but I would still say we are not big TV watchers. (And fwiw, when no one's watching it, it's off. There are few things that irritate me more than having the TV on in the background when no one is watching it.) About half the time, we watch sports, or one of MadMax's outdoors shows. (You would not believe the obscure outdoors skills that have entire series devoted to them.) Also, there are two shows set to record on the DVR (Modern Family and Big Bang Theory). But we're not really addicted to those-- if we miss them, or don't watch for several weeks, I don't even think about them. Also, there were brief periods early on when we were addicted to Downton Abbey and Arrested Development, but I lost interest after a season or two. And that's about it.

2. I'm not opposed to TV by any means. We have in the distant past been absolutely devoted to various shows-- a couple of iterations of Star Trek, Moonlighting, Northern Exposure, Lois and Clark, and there was some obscure detective show that came to its end when one of the stars shot himself with a prop gun and died-- I can't even remember the name of it. (see I told you, a really long time ago. the most recent one of those was mid-90s.)

3. But for some reason we haven't been immersed in a TV show in a long time. There are so many shows I've heard are good that I've never ever seen: Scandal, The Good Wife, Parenthood,The Gilmore Girls, Friday Night Lights, West Wing, Alien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.... (After finding this list, I could go on and on.) I actually like the idea of binge watching seven seasons of a show in a weekend, but on the rare occasion when there is a weekend we could do it, for some reason we never do.

4. So it occurred to me recently, the last time I was really addicted to a show was for the most part before we had kids. So.... maybe this is something that will return when we are empty nesters. Maybe we will spend every weekend binge watching TV shows until we are all caught up. It could happen. Let me know if you have any likely candidates.

Now that we've exhausted that topic.... moving on.....

5. We have seven chickens, and we have a fox. Seriously. Dean saw him/her waltzing across the driveway as he was leaving for work recently, and MadMax and I watched her/him make her way across our neighbor's yard last week. Our neighbors who live in full view of the field-next-door can see the fox family in their den. How can this be? Why aren't our chickens disappearing to feed little foxlets? We do shut our ladies in at night, but they wander around all day. My favorite theory: I think Ms. Fox tried one time (we do have one chicken that mysteriously developed a permanent limp), and our little flock ganged up on her and fought her off. You go, girls.

6. Just so you know I did it, here is the First Folio. I have to confess it's a little underwhelming in person. You enter a darkened room, with several spotlighted poster boards of information about Shakespeare and the folio, and in the dark at the far end of the room is a glass case with a 400-year-old book in it. It can't be exposed to light. It's cool to see it, but to be entirely honest, the workshops I attended on teaching Shakespeare were much more interesting.

7. I took an enormous pan of chili mac to the band banquet/potluck this week. Every time I carry a big dish of food into a potluck, I go right back to a bad moment from college. Sophomore year, my friend Angela (named changed to protect the innocent) was taking an upper level Spanish class. Her final project for the class was to cook an authentic meal from (some-spanish-speaking-region I can no longer remember). She cooked all day. There were several dishes, so she asked me to help her carry them from the kitchen to the classroom (I wasn't in the class, she just needed help transporting the food). I grabbed the main dish, I think it was in a crock pot, and off we went. About halfway there, I dropped the entire thing. Yes, I did. Her final project, which was to be graded, and which could absolutely not be reproduced with a magic wand, dumped right there on the linoleum. *buries face in hands*

Ever resourceful, Angela saw that the food was mounded up on the floor, so she scooped up the part that wasn't touching the floor, dumped it back in the pot, and off we went. I was so utterly ashamed and embarrassed that I have no memory of what happened next. Did I go back and clean up the mess? Did anyone get food poisoning? Did she pass the class? I have no memory, except I remember it ever single freaking time I carry a heavy dish of food.

Surprisingly, she still speaks to me, and in fact, it's possible she will tell her side of the story in the comments. :-)

There you go. Have a great holiday weekend, and for God's sake, if you're going to a potluck, carry the food carefully.

P.S. As several of you who read here will remember, our wedding was Memorial Day weekend thirty-two years ago. Happy anniversary to us!

To like or not to like, that is the question

I recently read another rant by a literary person about readers like me who judge books based on whether or not the characters are likable. How boring it would be, she prosed, if the only books you read were filled with people you liked. How bland the literary landscape would be if we only had books about likable people.

She has a point, you know. It would be boring if everyone in a book was tediously nice. But also I've read books I could barely get through--sometimes didn't get through-- because they were filled with a such a seedy, slimy, selfish bunch of people that there was no one I could bring myself to care about. In real life, maybe not everyone is likable, but neither is everyone awful.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I've never been in a situation where there weren't at least one or two people I liked or admired or at least respected. When you read one of those dismal, depressing literary books, it's as if they take place in some anti-universe where only bad things happen and only awful people are real. Everything good or hopeful is fake, shallow, and/or laughably stupid.

I don't live in that world. I don't get this everything is awful mentality. When I read a book like that, it seems cold, chilled, unfeeling. There's no warmth. Maybe I need some warmth to keep reading.

Anyway, back to the likable characters problem. Since I do sometimes say I couldn't get through a book because I didn't like any of the characters, her arguments made me think. Maybe I'm not accurately describing the reason I couldn't get through a book. Is it that no one is likable? Maybe it's that no one is lovable-- it's possible to love someone, to find someone adorable, who isn't very likable.

Nah, that's not it. Maybe it's that when I read a story full of people who are abusive, or spineless, or victims of one piece of bad luck after another, it doesn't seem real. It seems false to me in the same way it would feel false if everything was great. Sometimes I enjoy chick lit because the characters seem like people I know. Even though chick lit gets a bad rap in the literary world, to me it sometimes feels more realistic than the more highbrow fare.

Or maybe I can't bring myself to keep going in a book where I don't care what happens to any of the people. I don't really have a definite answer here, I'm just thinking. Of course I think the problem here lies with the literary snobs, who seem to disdain anything fun to read. They would probably argue that the problem lies with readers like me, who prefer to be (what they would call) "mindlessly entertained" rather than to have my mind stretched by a grittier version of reality. (Thankfully there's a vast ocean of the written word that hits somewhere in between.) What do you think?

And p.s. for the record, I do think this dichotomy between highbrow and lowbrow fiction is getting less pronounced. I've read a couple of books in the past year, and even a handful of short stories--which are often the worst culprits of the plotless, despairing school of writing-- that offered warmth without resorting to happy ever afters or neatly resolved endings. Beautiful Ruins comes to mind (Jess Walter), and some of Sherman Alexie's stuff, some stories we read for my short story class by Maile Meloy and Pete Fromm. They're out there.

7ToF: I found the simple life, ain't so simple

1. At the food bank this week, I was bagging some donated restaurant food across the table from another volunteer, an amiable homeschool kid who is 14-ish. Van Halen's "Runnin' with the Devil" came on the radio, and since I'm not exactly overflowing with topics of conversation with 14-year-old boys, I told him the story of how Michael Anthony, the bass player for Van Halen, used to play the opening notes of the song with his tongue. The kid was suitably impressed, and added, "I've heard this song about a billion times. My grandparents are so into this stuff."

*pause*

his grandparents? OH, THE PAIN. THE PAIN.

2. Remember my gush from last week about events celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death? Well, it turns out I have to hope they release the Royal Shakespeare version of Much Ado on DVD, because I can't go. There's yet another end-of-the-year event at MadMax's school, and I'm not missing any of them. I may be a Shakespeare fangirl, but I'm not missing a single bit of the end of my youngest kid's senior year. #emptynestlooms (also #emptynestbeckons, but I can feel both, you know)

3. But one thing I can do, probably as you read this, is drive down to Missoula to see the First Folio that is traveling the country this year, on loan from the Folger Library. The First Folio is the reason we have copies of Shakespeare's plays-- back in the day, plays were meant to be performed, not read, and printed copies of them were rare. A few years after his death, a couple of Shakespeare's acting buddies decided someone should pull the bard's works together, hence the First Folio. 750 copies were printed, of which 230-ish survive, and one of them is in Missoula right now. I'm driving down to see it and attend a couple of events.

4. The history of the first folio is surprisingly interesting (well, to me, anyway). I'm reading The Millionaire and the Bard, which is the story of how Henry Folger, of Folger Shakespeare Library fame, became obsessed with the First Folio, and thus amassed the greatest collection of Shakespeare stuff anywhere. Good read.

5. For years I have planted window baskets with masses of trailing wave petunias and bacopa. Some years, they've been spectacularly gorgeous. But I'm not doing them this year. I might not plant any flowers at all. Part of my ongoing midlife crisis, I guess. I just can't quite bring myself to care. Dean is predicting I will change my mind when it gets to be flower weather. (around here you plant them in May and hope there's not a late frost. flower weather doesn't actually start until June.)

6. There's no way to get into our house without going up a bunch of stairs, and since we have several friends and family with mobility issues, this has been a problem. So Dean put in a wheelchair accessible path. It's a pretty amazing piece of work. It might be a bit of a wild ride in a wheelchair, but do-able. Little did we know the first person to make use of it would be MadMax with his post-surgery crutches. Which, I am pleased to announce, he no longer needs.

7. (WW update) Although I am still going to weight watcher meetings (much to my surprise, they are pretty fun and interesting), I seem to be taking a break from weight loss. I've weighed exactly the same for three weeks now, and since the WW scale measures to a tenth of a pound, that's kind of odd. Even though I'm only a little more than halfway to my goal, still I've lost fifteen pounds, which is more than I thought I would ever lose. I never imagined I could actually do this. So part of me is done. I mean, FIFTEEN POUNDS. That is amazing. I'm still figuring out whether this is a midterm slump, or if I'm going to quit. The good news is: now I know how to maintain my weight. To the tenth of a pound.

I've talked to so many friends in crisis this week. I hope we can all find a bit of calm in the midst of the crazy this weekend.

in with the bad air, out with the good

(This is not the post I was going to write when I sat down, this was just going to be one paragraph at the beginning before I moved on to some other point which I can't even remember at the moment. Which means that I was figuring it out as I'm typed, which means that it's probably not exactly clear. But I don't have time to come up with something else to post about at this point. Forewarned is forearmed.)

Years ago I listened to a series of recorded lectures by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher, about the practice of tonglen. Briefly, tonglen is the meditation practice of returning good for evil. You breathe in negativity and breathe out goodness. It sounds simple, but in fact, it can be quite difficult to do.

Pema Chodron says that tonglen is an intermediate practice, an idea that immediately gets my back up because I'm not a fan of hierarchical spirituality -- i.e., higher levels of spiritual insight that are only available to people who are in the know or have been around for awhile. I'm not a fan for two reasons: because first of all, it tends toward spiritual snobbery (poor you, you're not as spiritual as me because you haven't reached the level of teaching I have), and secondly, because it doesn't seem to me to be the way spiritual teachings work. Most spiritual lessons are utterly simple, and you just keep learning them over and over again in different ways and different situations. "Love is patient" or "give thanks in all circumstances" are pretty simple, but I keep having to learn them in new ways, sometimes deeper, sometimes harder, sometimes just the same lesson over again.

But in the case of tonglen, Pema Chodron has a point when she says it is an intermediate practice. It's a difficult practice because it's damn hard to actively love someone who means you harm, or who slights and ignores you, or who undermines your confidence, or does any of a thousand other things that hurt or betray. If mis-practiced, it can leave you open to abuse.

Also, it's easy to learn this lesson in a way that's false-- in some pollyanna way, making myself a martyr to the idea, when really I'm just slapping a Nice label on my fear of standing up for myself. I think you can only legitimately say that you love your enemy when you stand strong in yourself, take the negativity on the chin, don't duck it or complain about it or whine about it, and yet at the same time find compassion and kindness for the person who means you harm.

There is some similarity in Jesus' teaching in the sermon on the mount. Jesus says if someone slaps you on the cheek, turn the other cheek and let them slap you again. If someone asks you to carry his gear for a mile, offer to carry it two. In my false understanding of this teaching, I have at times simply let myself become a doormat--OK, I'll do whatever you want, because it's easier to go along with it than it is to fight it. I'll just suck it up and take it without complaining--on the outside. But inside I'm whining about being a victim, it's so unfair, you shouldn't act like that, it's not fair.

I don't want to say that Buddhism and Christianity are the same, because they're not. It demeans both religions to try and reduce them down to a set of universal principles. But this is a great example of the way that I've been able to use my understanding of both of them to illuminate each other.

Learning the similar-but-different Buddhist teaching shows me a different dimension that may be closer to what Jesus actually intended. Because Jesus doesn't say to just suck it up and don't complain. He says to take it as an opportunity to show a different way of responding. You're acting out of a desire to put me in my place, but I'm showing you how to be gracious and compassionate instead. I see how you are trapped by the way you are treating me. You are suffering, too.

The thing is, it's not easy to do, especially in the moment when you're insulted and pissed and all you want to do is strike back. In fact, I've been really bad at it this week. I've been in a couple of situations where I interpreted something as an insult, and I fumed and felt sorry for myself and whined. This shit ain't easy.

Buddhism offers another principle I find helpful, though. In the Buddhist teaching, you start out on things that are easier and you practice. You start with some negative thing that is unconnected to you, say an unkindness or unfairness that you know about through hearsay, something you don't feel particularly strongly about. You practice breathing in the negative emotions, and breathing out the positive. Then you gradually shift to things that are more personal, that really do get an instantaneous angry response out of you, and let yourself sit with that response.

Breathe it in, let it transform, breathe it out. You're not taking in the bad thing and sending nothing back out, you're actively transforming the bad energy into good energy. It's a skill.

One that I'm not good at. But I'm practicing. And if I can learn the skill, like all such learning, it's empowering. Love makes us powerful, not doormats.

7ToF: once more into the breach

1. I knew next to nothing about raising chickens when we decided to get six a few years ago--probably the reason none of the original six are still around. Now we have seven. They are friendly little things, and keep us supplied with eggs. But they are not clean creatures. I wouldn't exactly call our black lab Sadie a clean dog, but she would never poop where she sleeps--something that chickens do all night long. They also, uh, defecate as they're walking around, so there is frequently poop in their food and in their water. As far as I can tell, they never even notice. It's really irritating, because presumably they shouldn't drink water with poop in it, so I have to clean it up. There you go, your Chicken Insight of the Day. You're welcome.

2. All of us anglophiles went flutter-y this week when a video popped up on social media of Prince Charles (you know, the heir to the British throne) on stage with a bunch of Shakespearean actors who were arguing adorably about how to say Hamlet's famous line, "To be or not to be, that is the question." If you haven't seen it, it's here. Seriously. Ian McKellan, David Tennant, Dame Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch, Prince Charles.

3. If you live in a place where you can go see Shakespeare any time you want, skip on to the next item. But for the rest of us, forgive me for gushing, but Much Ado About Nothing, filmed live by the Royal Shakespeare Company a few weeks ago for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, is coming to a theater near you. Or at least, near me. On May 23rd. I'm hyperventilating, I'm so worried something will come up and I'll miss it. Try this link for more info. Apparently the skit from #3 was recorded at the same event, because all of those people (besides the Prince of Wales) are in the play, plus more. Be still, my heart.

4. If you're a voracious reader, and I am, there are few things more unsettling than not being able to find something to read. It makes me twitchy. I've tried half a dozen books in the past week that I couldn't get into. Of course I have piles more, so no worries, but this is unusual for me. I usually read for about a half hour before I get up in the morning, and for an hour (or more) before I go to sleep at night. If I'm not reading, I end up just messing around on my phone, which then feels like wasted time. #firstworldproblem

5. MadMax suffers from mild GERD (a fancy way of saying he has heartburn) which means we avoid tomato products around here. Since spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorite easy meals (NO I do not make meatballs from scratch, are you kidding me? Costco sells them by the enormo-bag), I've had to come up with a non-tomato sauce for them. It's actually not bad, and it's sort of like making a potion--i.e., it's fun. You shake some worcestershire sauce, some kitchen bouquet, a blob of beef bouillon paste, and a smaller blob of chicken bouillon paste into a jar with a tight lid, fill the jar about halfway with water, add about a third of a cup of flour and shake it up until smooth. Then you add that to the meatballs which you are already simmering in beef broth. Makes a kind-of gravy. I'd still rather have traditional tomato sauce, but for MadMax's sake, this works, and he loves it.

6. Did anybody else see the new version of The Jungle Book? I have to confess I was a little disappointed. After seeing the trailer on the big screen a couple of months ago, I somehow thought they were going back to the book--which I've never read, but the idea intrigued me. But it is basically a remake of the 1967 animated film (which came out when I was in grade school and I loved with a great love) without most of the music. It's not badly done, but not what I was expecting.

7. We went to our Last High School Band Concert this week. (It was excellent, by the way. Amazing how much a bunch of kids can learn about their instruments in six years.) As their bring-the-house-down number at the end, they played Stars and Stripes Forever, which I also played at my last high school band concert back in 1979. Traditionally, the piccolo players stand up on the third verse and play their tweedly-dee bit, and since I was one of two piccolo players, that included me. I freaked out and barely played two notes, although fortunately my friend and fellow piccoloist Lynne nailed it. It practically made me sick to my stomach when the poor girl from MadMax's band stood up for her moment, but she did not freak out and did a great job. The next tradition is that the trombones stand up for the last verse, and MadMax's band director went one better by having the entire back row of brass players stand. That part brought tears to my eyes, as it always does. Partly because of the music and the exuberance, partly the whole "last time" bit-- I suspect I'll be crying from now until August 26, when we get home from dropping our poor kid off for freshman orientation. Keep Dean and MadMax in your prayers, they may not survive this.

I just noticed as I was scheduling this that tomorrow is Friday the 13th (which will be today by the time you read this). Hope you have an uneventful day and a great weekend.

oops I did it again

I was driving in for my shift at the food bank yesterday when I realized that I never even thought about my usual Tuesday post. I've written a few recently that were last minute or otherwise haphazard, but I can't remember the last time that I flat-out forgot about my blog. Does this have some deeper meaning, or am still recovering from the stress of the past month? Who knows.

I did have an idea over the weekend of what to write about, but maybe I will save that for next week. At the moment, all I can do is worry about our country. I was listening to a podcast not long ago and one of the speakers, a blogger, said that she has been having a hard time coming up with things to post about because she is determined to stay out of politics, and yet she's so worried about the election it's all she wants to talk about.

I'm naturally apolitical-- I've never been one to follow politics, or enjoy debates, or in any way participate in our political process other than voting (I always vote). But I get what she means. It's hard to see how this is going to end well. I suppose things are at their very worst right now, with both parties divided and angry at others in their own party, let alone the other party. Maybe it will get better once the conventions are over. But at the moment, with huge chunks of each party insisting that they will refuse to participate if this or that happens, it's hard to see how healing will occur.

As a long-time democrat, I was expecting to sit back and watch smugly as our candidate sailed to an easy convention win while the GOP fell apart under the weight of their infighting. I can't regret Bernie's presence in our political process, because clearly he is voicing something that many feel. Having a voice is what democracy is all about.

But I wish he had figured out a way to do it without splitting the party. Pragmatically speaking, I'm skeptical about the viability of Bernie's ideas if he is elected, since almost nothing he proposes is likely to pass a Republican-controlled legislature. It sounds like The Adventures of Polarized Stagnant Congress Part II, if you ask me (and of course you didn't).

The thing that worries me most is the people on either extreme who are sure that everything will be fine if only their candidate wins. And the only way things will be fine is if their candidate wins. Those of us who are moderates--either left or right-- are left staring in disbelief, and worrying. For the first time ever, I feel I have more in common with moderate Republicans than I do with the extreme members of my own party.

I am so enormously grateful at the moment that I have friends in all camps. Having people I love and/or respect who thoroughly disagree with my opinions has opened my eyes to a wide variety of ways of looking at our current scene. There are so many who either by choice or by reason of geography or whatever have come to believe that what they think is what most reasonable people think, and that people who disagree must be ignorant and uninformed. But I can't do that, because I know too many wonderful people who believe differently than I do.

I don't know what I'm saying, I'm just writing off the cuff. I probably shouldn't even post this, because after all the times I've said I'm not writing about politics, this makes twice in the past two weeks. But it's what I'm thinking about right now.

7ToF: this is actually short this week because I'm too tired to think of anything to talk about.

1. We've been watching BBC Earth's Life Story. It's amazing, both the subject matter and the photography. Jaw dropping. Highly recommended.

2. We get to sleep to one of my favorite things tonight-- the sound of distant thunder. Since we've spent several hours gardening today, we're pretty psyched that it's raining.

3. After having been to the grocery store or Costco every day this week, I was not gonna go again today. But Cinco de Mayo snuck up on me. So we made do with a can of Rosarita refried beans, a package of tortillas, a couple of different types of salsa, and some sour cream. It was actually pretty good. #pantrydinner

4. It is now almost exactly one month until MadMax graduates from high school. Gack. Seems like it should still be months away.

5. Our amazing daughter PellMel turns 26 on Mother's Day. I'm not sure what better Mother's Day gift I could ask for than that she is driving home tomorrow and will be here for the weekend. I'm a happy mama.

6. The rivalry between Montana's two big state schools (Univ of Montana Grizzlies and Montana State Univ Bobcats) is intense--not that you would have ever heard of it since we're a pretty small state, but if you live here, it's a big deal. Not knowing this, we started buying UM gear when we moved here because you know, now we live in Montana, we should have some Montana stuff. Then in 2009, I went to UM for grad school. So we've always been more-or-less UM people, with a variety of maroon Griz t-shirts, mugs, and koozies hanging around.

7. But a couple of years ago PellMel went to MSU for her first year of graduate studies, and now MadMax is heading there in the fall. Apparently there aren't many Bobcats in our town, because I couldn't find much in the way of MSU stuff here locally. I had to get online this week and order blue and gold MSU t-shirts, etc. to reflect our changing loyalties.

There. A brief Seven Things on Friday. Have a great weekend.

What I Wish I Knew My First Week on Weight Watchers: Advice for Newbies / Beginners

I had a terrible time my first couple of weeks on Weight Watchers because I couldn't figure out what to eat. The veterans must have a bunch of things they pick up without thinking about it, because if you ask, they tell you, "Oh, just poke around on the Weight Watchers website! There are great recipes! I love the chicken teriyaki with greens!" or "Flip through the guide! There are great ideas, organized by points!" or "Eat whatever you want! That's the great thing about WW! Just make sure you track everything!"

That last one is particularly bad advice, because if you do that, you've used up your points by the time you're done with lunch (or maybe before). The others are actually good advice, and true, but they don't help any when you get back from running errands at noon and you're starving and you don't want to fix poached salmon and roasted asparagus for lunch. That's not to say you shouldn't cook lunch from scratch, but sometimes--especially that first week--you just want to eat.

They didn't understand that I needed actual food recommendations, not just generalized advice. So, here you go, the foods I wish I'd known about my first week. I'm a newbie myself, just four months in, so take this with a grain of salt. Also, forgive the amateur photos, I don't have the patience to set up those gorgeous food shots.

- I've said elsewhere that I'm not a fan of wasting points on supermarket bread, but sometimes you need to get the sandwich filling from the plate to your mouth. Sara Lee Delightful works well for that, and it's one point per slice. Also, "light" english muffins are two or three points, depending on the brand. Compare either of those to my old favorite sandwich bread, which is five points per slice.

Sara Lee Delightful sandwich bread and
Thomas light english muffins

- What to put between your Sara Lee slices: deli turkey and canadian bacon are 1 point for 2 ounces, which is plenty for a sandwich. Turkey bacon is one point per slice. My go-to breakfast is a single slice of Sara Lee bread made into a half-sandwich with either deli turkey or canadian bacon. Thank the lord I love deli mustard because it's zero points and adds a lot of flavor.

- The single serve pack of StarKist Chunk Light tuna in water is ZERO points. How amazing is that? So you can add a tablespoon of light mayonnaise (1 point) and two pieces of bread and you're still at 3 points. You can stir in minced onion, carrot, or apple for extra flavor (zero points). Or you can add capers and a squeeze of lemon (also zero points) to go Mediterranean.

Progresso Light soup and a Chunk Light Tuna pouch

- More lunch ideas: If you don't have a problem with salt (and recent research has shown that not many people do), Progresso Light soups are good, easy choices, although be aware that there are two "servings" in a can. The chicken and vegetables with rosemary in the picture above (my favorite) is 2 points per serving, so four points for the can. Other brands of light soup are also good.

PB2, both flavors, and lightly salted rice cakes, also known
as edible styrofoam, but sometimes they serve a purpose

- PB2 is powdered peanut butter which has somehow magically had 85% of the fat removed. At our grocery store, it is on the top shelf over the regular peanut butter. Is it as good as real peanut butter? No. But it's not bad. Two tablespoons are one point (as opposed to three points for one tablespoon of regular PB). You stir a tablespoon of water into two tablespoons of the powder and you have peanut butter (use a little extra water so it spreads easier). It also comes in chocolate, which is-- astoundingly-- the same number of points. My favorite late afternoon snack at the moment is a plain rice cake (1 point) spread with two tablespoons of chocolate PB2 (1 point), topped with banana slices (zero points). It's actually pretty dang good.

- More snack ideas. I really, really needed something I could carry in my purse for when I'm out running around. WW has some mini granola bars that are two points, but they're hella expensive and they're about a bite and a half. I've finally settled on Nature Valley Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Protein bars. They're six points, which is a lot, but they're relatively inexpensive, they're easy to carry, and they have 10 g of protein and only 6 g of sugar. If you're having a craving for something sweet, they do the job without blowing 15 points on a small hot fudge sundae from Dairy Queen (which I have also done, and sometimes it's worth it). There are lots of other options-- I spent about fifteen minutes in front of the granola bar section at the grocery store scanning bar codes in the WW app to find one that I liked.

Nature Valley protein bars and Pop Secret 94% fat free popcorn

Also in the picture above: 94% fat free microwave popcorn is 2 points for 3 cups of popped corn. I ate about five gallons of popcorn my first week because I didn't know what else to eat.

- And check this out. If you ate everything on the plate pictured below, it would be ZERO POINTS, and of course that goes for almost all fruits and vegetables eaten without any added sugar or fat. (The only exceptions I know of are avocados, corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.) This is my favorite thing about weight watchers. If I put out a plate of cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, broccoli florets, clementines, etc, not only do I eat them instead of other snacks, the rest of my family does, too. They don't need to lose weight but it never hurts to eat your veggies.

I know. If I were a real blogger I would have
found a banana that looked more appetizing. 

- If you can't eat raw veggies without dipping them in something, try Opa Greek Yogurt salad dressings (with the refrigerated salad dressings in the produce section). They have a definite plain yogurt tang, but that's OK with me. The Feta Dill flavor is one point for two tablespoons. Yogurt can be a good snack, too, as long as you check carefully-- my old favorite (Dannon Cherry Orchard) is eight points, but various different "light" and non-fat greek yogurts are 3-5 points per serving. The Oikos Triple Zero shown in the picture is sweetened with Stevia, which has kind of a funny taste but is only 3 points.

- Late evening hot beverage. Having a cup of decaf coffee or herbal tea about an hour before I go to bed has saved me from many an evening snacking binge. I doctor it up with a quarter cup of soymilk (1 point) and a half teaspoon of maple sugar (0 points) and it is a life saver.

One more little trick. On the Weight Watchers app, if you pull up an item-- say deli turkey-- there is a default serving size. For deli turkey, it is two ounces. But if you edit the serving size, you sometimes discover that the next size up is still the same number of points-- three ounces of deli turkey is still one point. It's surprising how often that works. That's how I know that 94% fat free popcorn is two points for three cups, even though if you pull it up on the app, it says two cups are two points. Obscure WW knowledge.

So, hope that is helpful. And may we all persevere, even after we screw up and have to forgive ourselves and get back to it, which is where I am right now. I got halfway to my goal and got lazy, but I'm not giving up. I know a few of you are also in WW, any tips to add?