I don't think I got a chance to mention the interesting scale event from
last week.  I went in to my doctor on Wednesday, and since I was finally
under 350lbs (barely), I was excited because I'd finally fit on their
scale.  Only I got on it, set the thing to 249, and it was still too
much.  248 was too much.  245 was too much.  I had to knock the thing
down to 240 before it started to wiggle, and finally settled on 239.
That's 10lbs lighter than I'd been the week before, and there's no way
I'd buy that big a loss in one week, considering I hadn't been
life-threateningly ill or anything.  I was curious to see what the WW
scales would say.

According to them, I only lost 0.2lb.  Not 10lbs.  Which makes way more
sense, but I *was* hoping it'd be just a bit more than that.  0.2lb
isn't exciting.

However, my stepmother had called me on the Sunday preceeding: my father
had just died that afternoon.  Don't anybody get too upset about it, he
and I weren't really close at all, I barely knew the guy.  So it's not a
big upsetting event to me; mostly it's just sudden and weird.  But
Nancy, my stepmother, was devastated (of course).  There was a lot of
question as to whether I could get up there for it (they're on the
northern Oregon coast, I'm down here in Houston), given airfare and
probably having to stay in a hotel.  Fortunately I found a flight for
$300, and Nancy's boss had some rental properties he was more than
willing to let everybody stay in for the duration.

So I was rushing around all week, arranging flights, making sure the
powerbook I ordered arrived in time, seeing the doctor, making my
meeting, and then the friend who does my hair said she'd do mine
Thursday night, staying late at her salon for me so I could have fresh
hair for the service, which was really nice of her.  And she gave me a
huge discount, too.  But I got everything arranged, packed some healthy
granola bars for the flights, and set off Friday afternoon.

My thought going up there was that, since I was staying with her, and
she always had healthy food around, eating wouldn't be a problem.  Not
to mention we'd probably make grocery store trips.  Boy, was I mistaken.
 All her friends, neighbors, co-workers, everybody was bringing her
food.  Cakes and pies and pastries and cookies and muffins and all sorts
of fattening food.  The best of the lot, nutrition-wise, were the six
large trays of sandwiches.  Buttermilk bread on half of them, ham, thick
slabs of real cheese, oodles of mayo.. they were tasty.  But *so* unlow
in points.  However, I ate probably two trays of them all by myself,
since the alternative was calorically worse.

I did have a piece of cake after the service, and an alcoholic beverage.
 But pretty much the rest of the time I ate as well as I possibly
could.  Friday was alright, since I was on the planes all day and they
never once fed me.  Saturday (the day of the service) I used up every
single last one of my flex points, and 2 more besides.  Sunday I went
about 15 points over my daily, and then Monday I ended up about 30
points over, because it was another airline day and the only places open
in the airports when I got there (overnight flights are cheaper, you
know) were Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.  And a Starbucks: I will admit to
having a 6-point beverage I could've lived without.  But man, it was
good, and it relaxed me really a lot, which I needed.

Then Tuesday I tried to do damage control, reducing to 20 points for the
day.  Which failed miserably, because I didn't know we were having the
dart league party that night, and instead of my usual low-point club
sandwich, I got guacamole roll-up things, deviled eggs, buttery
crackers, dip and chex mix.  I picked all the pretzels out of the mix,
ate 80% of the lowest-point crackers, four eggs and three rolls.  I
wouldn't've, but it was the only thing available for many hours, and I
had to eat something.  So with the weekend, and then me not being able
to account for it within the timeframe that would've helped, I was
*really* expecting a big gain this week.

i did have a gain.  But it was 0.2lb.  I was shocked.  Mike said it's
unlikely to bite me in the a.s next week, since most of the food was
Sunday/Monday and it would've shown by Thursday.  As long as I'm
strictly on-program this week, I should be just fine.  These miracle
weeks happen, he says, where you swear you ate enough to gain ten
pounds, and then manage to luck out and not do it.

0.2lb.  I think I'll take it.

-s