Skinny

Although I don't personally recommend this to anyone -- go have your tonsils removed with red hot pliers, it'd be more fun -- one unintended benefit of a sick-for-nearly-three-weeks family is that I have lost quite a bit of weight.  Maybe as much as eight pounds.  When you're feeling awful and your kids are feeling awful and there's nothing to eat in the house, it's just more fun to go to bed hungry than to actually fix something to eat.  I'm not really sure what my kids ate the last couple of weeks; they all look healthy enough.

Anyway, I am now able to fit into a pair of pants my Mom gave me two years ago that I have never, until now, been able to even zip up.  (Why did I take them?  One of those inexplicable female mysteries.)  Now, not only can I zip them up, they're so loose they're in danger of falling off without a belt.

A skeleton, I am not.  I am still quite "healthy."  However, this silver lining has shown up at a perfect time:  the Marine Corps Birthday Ball (THE social event of the year for the US Embassy) is this Saturday and, again for female reasons unfathomable, the only formal dress I have is actually a full size too small for me.  I bought it KNOWING it was a full size too small.  I decided to buy it while standing in the dressing room recovering from a claustrophobe's panic attack at having to slip the skin-tight sheath (it's not supposed to be skin-tight) over my head and then not being able to breathe because it was so tight.

Yeah.  Not too bright.

So every year a few weeks before the Marine Ball I go into panic mode and end up spending the evening of the ball sitting up very straight, not moving or breathing so I don't split a seam in my much-too-small dress.

I tried my dress on the other day and it was loose.  Loose!  There will be enough room in it this year that I can even wear hose!

And, when I modeled it for the boys, I got a chorus of genuine and enthusiastic WOW!s.  I told them they'd make great husbands some day.

Gotta run -- I need to find my belt before my pants fall off!