Just Like Ted

"What are you gonna do this weekend?", asked a friend last Friday. "Nothing much," I said at the time and I meant it then. But what I did was spend Friday night and most of Saturday glued to the TV watching the memorial and funeral services for Edward Moore Kennedy.

Forty-five years ago I spent a similar weekend in November watching the events surrounding his brother's assassination, the murder of his killer, and finally his funeral. But those were very different days and I was a very different person. At seventeen I had hardly started forming my beliefs about life, and what's right and what's wrong. In those days I blithely spouted the anti-Kennedy things I heard at home. (Did you know that JFK was a Catholic? Apparently it mattered then. At least to Dad.)

I remember being fascinated on that long-ago weekend, with the wall-to-wall news coverage of the event, and especially the shock of actually seeing someone killed on TV. Even tho I didn't feel any real personal loss at JFK's death, the mourning of nation moved me.

By the time Martin and Bobby died in the late 60's, I had begun to change. Concern about people whose lives were harder than mine had begun to be important. I no longer understood the values of the Old South in which I had grown up where people were treated poorly simply because of the color of their skins.

Today I feel much different. I now see the world filled with "have's" and "have not's" and I want to even the balance. I no longer understand this country of extremes where we are willing to let people die because they become sick and don't have access to adequate medicine; where we are willing let people lose their homes and health insurance because they lose their

According to Senator Kennedy's office, he wrote more than 2,500 bills, of which more than 500 actually became law. Look at some of the things he accomplished in the past 47 years:

1971 -- Legislation passed quadrupling cancer funds.

1990 -- Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits disability discrimination.

1993 -- Co-authored the Family and Medical Leave Act, requiring businesses to provide unpaid leave for emergencies or births.

1996 -- Kennedy-Kassebaum Act allowed employees to keep health insurance for a time after losing job.

2002 -- Backed President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law.

2002 -- Voted "no" on Iraq war resolution

Perhaps it is that when you have plenty of money and don't have to worry about having the wherewithal to take care of your own family, you can take the time to think about the families of others, especially those who slip between the cracks.

So, I mourned last weekend the death of an icon, but more than that a man who chose to live by the rule we all seem to neglect - you know, the one about loving others as ourselves. When you listen to all the stories about Ted Kennedy the theme that runs thru them all, is that he was the first to reach out to others: to call or write when one had trouble and then to continue to follow-up. He constantly thought about how he could make life easier and more fair for the weakest in our country - the poor, the sick, the disabled, the undereducated, the pregnant, the old.

We all need to think that way now. How can we help? How can we make it easier for someone who doesn't have the same advantages? the same access? Teddy represented all that is good about liberalism today, and his is the kind of liberalism that I want to embrace. I am my sister's keeper.

What would Teddy do?

The Woman on Page 194

If you have been busy the past week you may have missed the controversy about Lizzie Miller - a lovely young woman who models in the most recent Glamour Magazine.

I haven't seen a Glamour - well, the inside - in at least 30 years. It's always been too high fashion and too studiously hip for my taste or my body type, but I do check out most covers from the grocery store line. However, I have the advantage of working from home and get to listen to TV all day, so I met Lizzie and her controversy earlier this week on the Today Show.

It seems that she is a "plus size"model - which is model-talk for "she wears a 12 or 14". Don't know about you, but I think of "plus size" as 20 and above, but apparently the folks at Glamour and in the fashion industry think a lot smaller than the rest of us. And Lizzie is The woman on page 194.

If you just followed that link, you will have seen that Glamour has received more than 700 responses to that post on Glamour editor Cindy Leive's blog and thousands of emails to her. And you will have seen the picture that started all the talking and blogging and discussion. In "the photo" Lizzie is nude.

She has a belly. She has thighs. She has a bit of cellulite. She looks like us. Well, 40 years younger, blonde and bubbly, but you get my drift anyway.

So, what Glamour readers are saying loud and clear is that they love her; they love having images in the magazine that are "like us"; and "give us more". The Glamour editor actually said that she is considering using more plus size models in the future - perhaps not nude, tho.

The ladies on Today went to far as to express surprise that 12 or 14 is considered plus size. I've read elsewhere that the average American woman wears a 14, so I would call it "average" myself, but the whole things brings to light one more time our obsession with our size and our weight.

I remember a time [in the 60's] when our standard for size was Twiggy. Fortunately, most of us decided that her build was unattainable and perhaps not such a good idea for most of us. So, in the 70's we moved on to Farrah. She was a bit more "round" and in addition to skateboarding, she played tennis and ran and swam and overall had a pretty active lifestyle - at least in publicity photos - but as unrealistic as having her hairstyle work for us, was the thought of getting a body like hers. In the 80's we went back to Twiggy - oops, my mistake. That was Kate Moss.

And so it goes. We are obsessed with our weight and our shape. And as the decades pass it gets harder and harder to maintain, much less reduce, our size. Harder to exercise, harder to eat less - just plain harder to love ourselves as we are. We rejoice with Oprah, Kirstie and Valerie when they lose a few pounds [well, 40 is a whole lot more than a few!] and we understand when they fall off the thin wagon - just as we have done for years.

My current excuse is that when Dad died we spent 10 days in a hotel, eating restaurant food. Yeah, but that was three years ago. The nearly 30 pounds I put on in the next six months is still firmly attached to my body - well, at least most of it. Think of it: thirty pounds in six months is more than a pound per week. Have you ever taken off a pound a week - consistently for six months? I thought not.

So, what to do? How can one achieve a healthy weight, and stop trying to look like Valerie, or Ellen (Degenes or Pompeo) or Meredith Viera. There's a lady of "a certain age" who looks normal - like the rest of us. It all comes back to getting down to basics:

Accepting that fad diets don't really work. I lost 35 pounds on Atkins, but put it back in six months once stress kicked in again.

There is no miracle pill... at least not yet. Alli helps a bit (limits the amount of fat one can metabolize, so you eliminate the rest). But, now the FDA is investigating a possible link between Alli and liver damage. It's only 30 patients in 9 years, but 20% of them suffered liver failure - makes you at least think.

The basics still work - more exercise and better food choices.

Fear helps, too. One of my favorite things at a previous job was a model of five pounds of fat. Imagine being able to peel that off your hips all in one big slab - boy! would that be liberating!

So here's where I am today. I really need to lose 30 pounds to be back to a healthy BMI. But I have a plan now.

Ten months ago I started taking Jazzercise, and I am finally seeing some results. Actually, I believe that if I could just dump 10 pounds, you would see that I have built up respectable muscles underneath, especially in my core. I am trying to increase from two or three days per week to a consistent four or five.

A summer with all my kitchen counters covered in fruit and my vegetable bins filled to overflowing has helped me to decrease the amount of meat and [my beloved] bread I normally eat, and to at least double the amount of fruits and vegetables. I am trying to choose lower fat alternatives and to shave a few extra calories where I can - like a tall chai at Starbucks, instead of a grande. And, on the advice of my personal trainer*, I've actually added a couple of healthy [most of the time] snacks to my day.

Progress is slow. I have finally lost the first five pounds. It's a tad more than 15% of my goal. I have not set a time deadline, but hope to lose about two pounds a month, so it will take a while. I am starting to see little things. I wore a tee shirt tucked in yesterday for the first time in several years.... because I have a new waist! Triumphs are small, and perhaps far between, but I believe that I can do this. Will keep you posted.

* Special thanks to my "personal trainer". Stacy is a health educator in western Virginia with whom I worked for more than 15 years at a previous job. We have stayed in touch and she has been very helpful and encouraging. She just doesn't know that she's my personal trainer - until now. Thanks, Stacy!

A Treaure Re-Found

Meet Plantathera x canbyi a new resident of the Nassawango Creek Preserve on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

My good friend JC in Albuquerque sent me a neat link today to the Washington Post article about its discovery. Seems this is a naturally occurring hybrid of the white fringed orchid (white, duh!) and the crested yellow orchid (orange). Both of its parents are considered rare and are protected, and this offspring has only been found once before in Maryland - and that was nearly 20 years ago.

Can you imagine having a job in which you go out and look for rare plants? Doesn't that sound like fun? Actually, it was a little more trouble than that. Apparently they burned some 10,000 acres this spring in an attempt to clear out opportunistic and invasive species and to see what native species would then have the opportunity to re-emerge. In addition to this pretty little orchid, there were several species of spurge.

In case you would like to see Canbyi's parents, here they are, too:

"mom" and "dad"


Enjoy!

Coinjock to Portsmouth

Saturday

Today was our last day of travel and we don't really want to get home! It has been a great two weeks. Today we did the reverse of the first day - running up the North Landing River to the southern branch of the Elizabeth River and then on into Norfolk. We ran the bridges and locked thru at Great Bridge as we did coming down. Time-wise it's the longest day, because one must stop at many bridges and wait for their next opening. Today we waited as long as 45 minutes. It seems to me that they are timed for traveling southbound, rather than northbound, but that may not be correct.

We arrived in Portsmouth around 1:00, but had left before 8:00 this morning to make the first bridge. Everyone is tired and hot this afternoon, so not much is going on. Mitchell took one guy to a supply store to buy a gasket, and I have already packed my stuff, but we still have a cocktail party, dinner and one last night on the boat. We will help Don cast off in the morning, see the rest of the boats off to Deltaville and Osborne Landing, and then head up 64 ourselves.

I have learned at lot of things over the past two weeks. Among them:

Four people can vacation together without killing each other. This was our biggest fear - that one of us [well, me] would succumb to lack of sleep or food and get.... can you say "bitchy"? it did not happen. I weathered my shoulder problems early in the trip and Mitchell's illness in the middle in good humor. On the days I felt badly, I was able to find ways to keep to myself a bit and never acted out. One point for me!

When docking, the wind wants to push you away, so the windward bowline goes on first. We learned this the hard - and very public - way at Albemarle Plantation. We have done it perfectly every time since - including today when the wind whipped up at the last minute. Don has twice complimented us on our good line-handling skills. One for both of us.

Wifi is only available some places, but crab pots are everywhere! There have been several places that promised wifi, but the signal was not strong enough to access even email. It has been good for me to not be able to check email every day. I have currently gone three days without checking my office email. They can live without me, and I without them. Good lesson. One more point.

You can't get a manicure on the Sound. Well at least not without a car. I tried in Manteo - two employees, not working, who told me that the soonest they could work me in was "tomorrow afternoon". At Edenton the nail shop was closed on Saturday. There was not one in Columbia, altho the clerk at Farm Fresh clearly had gone somewhere 'cause hers were great! And in Elizabeth City there was no manicurist working that day. They could call around and see if anyone wanted to come in.... if I really wanted, and could wait several hours. So I have managed a new broken nail nearly every day for the past 10 days! I shall tip Ahn extra on Monday. No points awarded.

They don't do crepe murder in North Carolina, and good for them! Five points to the good folks of North Carolina.

Those 18th century folks sure liked their cemetery monuments - angels of many sorts, obelisks, and animals galore in the old cemeteries. Makes our modern ones look pretty boring. I am thinking of collecting photos of them for a while. No points yet.

This is a gorgeous country and we don't take enough opportunities to explore it. The early settlers must have thought they had found the land of milk and honey. It is simply gorgeous from the water - marsh mallows growing all over the marshes (duh), egrets, herons and wading birds in the shallows, and ospreys on every other marker post. [Of course, the early settlers didn't find marker posts!] You can just see the opportunity - at least in the places where there aren't condos wall-to-wall, and clearly someone already saw the opportunity there. Ten points to the U.S. and minus two for the condo developers.

Sunday

A two-week vacation is a bit too long. It's really nice to be home. We are both pretty tired this afternoon - well, four loads of washing and drying will do that any old time. We saw the boats off from Portsmouth a little after 8:00 this morning and then fought the traffic back home. I think I would have liked to come home on Friday to have a couple of days to decompress before going back to work. Two weeks away from work was fine - if you know what I mean.

Hope you have enjoyed our journey. If you are interested in seeing more photos, I will eventually upload them all to Kodak Gallery. There are about 200, so let me know and I will give you the address when I have it.