Stress Eating, Meningitis, and Taking It Back to 1990

Monday's post was meant to be the beginning of a weekend update, but I tend to forget that I'm a tad verbose and needed to cut it off at my Friday night wardrobe descriptions. So instead of offering the minutiae of the rest of my weekend, I've changed gears and now want to offer a completely helpful post about how I handle stress.

This weekend was a tad bit stressful. I fully handled it with an ample supply of tortilla chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant while on a rare day date with Brian. I followed that Food That Didn't Count with three hard shell tacos and two diet Cokes. I totally felt better for the hour I was there.

Later that evening, when Chris and Stacy came over with their kids even though I had mistakenly planned that it was our turn to go out, (and consequently was completely unprepared for four extra kids after being out all day long) I soothed with a hot dog, dill pickle chips, and some diet Cherry Pepsi. Also, cookies.

At that point, I was all in for March Nosh Fest.

In the spirit of "Go Big or Go Home", I continued my streak on Sunday with iced coffee (of course I did), a microwaveable breakfast burrito, a Hot Pocket with a pretzel crust and filled with cheese and bacon tomato, and ice cream.

It was a lovely and delicious two days. Then I remembered my Monday night weigh in with Kemper.

Call me a lot of things, but I'm not a liar. I do however, joke about hard things in order to alleviate tension.

*minor tangent*

(*Case in point* One of the hardest things this weekend was that my sister was hospitalized for meningitis. The first three days of her admission were spent waiting for the labs to get back with us about what kind she had. I visited Saturday afternoon and did the following things:

Hey girl, this mask you need to wear to avoid
sickness could never mask your beauty.

1. I immediately renamed her day nurse. This was because when I showed up I was greeted by the signage covering her door filled with horrifying doomsday proclamations about her condition and the precautions I had to take in order to enter. I went in search of her nurse so I could get the run down on contagious diseases and the mask I needed to don. I was waiting at the nurses station when her day nurse walked up. At first I thought I was being punked because it was like JACKSON FREAKING AVERY was talking to me about medical type things and surely someone was messing with me by trying to convince me I was living in Grey's Anatomy.

I'm just sayin' the boy was attractive.

When I finally saw Cassie, I commented, "Dude, he's not too bad looking." She replied, "Oh, Dan?" I answered, "Dan? You mean D@mn, as in 'D@mn that boy is fine," which is probably my favorite joke of the whole weekend. We even varied it, calling him Lieutenant D@mn before dissolving in fits of giggles like twelve year old girls.

2. After several nurses commented on what an easy patient my sister is, I decided they were not complimenting her. Clearly, these statements were veiled attempts to communicate that she needed to up her game. So we put together a game plan to be the most fun patient ever that probably involved a lot of jokes about poop. It was hysterical and inappropriate and exactly what we needed to get her through to her eventual diagnosis of Aseptic Meningitis which was the kind we all wanted. Phew.

*end tangent*

So, back to dealing with stress by joking. I tend to get away with some things because I joke about them. On Monday night when I found Kemper to weigh me in, I didn't lie at all. I said my planned greeting of, "Dude, I totally ate this weekend like it was the only way to get into Heaven." I expected Kemper would laugh and give me a psuedo-serious lecture about good decisions and having a plan for dealing with stress, but instead he looked crestfallen and said, "What happened?" before drilling me about everything I ate and how I exercised. He actually groaned when I mentioned my Mexican Feast. I started haltingly editing my verbal food diary as he looked more and more upset. I felt like I'd let down The Master.

The damage wasn't as bad as I expected. I gained a half a pound but also 1.6% body fat. Kemper spent close to a half hour talking with me about my goals (it totally felt like I was back in high school visiting with the school counselor) (except I'm a 34 year old GROWN UP and Kemper is 22 precious years old*) before offering to train me (FOR FREE) on Tuesday because he really felt like I needed to "lift heavy". (And I, of course, am just as skeptical about "lifting heavy" as I am about this high protein/high fat diet that works amazingly well when I follow it.)

(* this is how I know Kemper is 22. When I was being scanned for weight and body fat percentage I made a joke about feeling like I was in Total Recall, and Kemper looked a little blank. I was all, "Tell me you've seen Total Recall", and he was all, "I saw a few scenes of the remake," and I was all, "Dude, that will not do," because the original Total Recall was so terrible that it is amazing. I was all, "How old are you?" (did you totally just think of Twilight and read that in Bella's voice because if not you're doing it wrong) and he said, "22," and I died a little inside when I did the math and realized I could have babysat him. He was nine when I got married. Because I was then fully off my game I voiced those thoughts out loud before stammering, "I mean, I don't mean I could baby sit you now... I meant back then, you know, when you were a kid ..." before trailing off in stellar fashion. Kemper smirked, so I punched him on his baby fine skin. (Sike.)(That never happened.)(The punching thing, I mean.)

I'll write next on my experiences "lifting heavy" in a post I've titled "I thought I was in labor but I was just lifting heavy." Y'all come back now, 'ya hear?