If mango salsa were a dance

If mango salsa was a type of dance,  I’d be much thinner;   I don’t dance.

Weekend gatherings of friends normally involve a single occasion:  breakfast, a birthday lunch, a barbecue or snacks, beers and football.   Among my friends and neighbors who may enjoy food and drink  a little more than our more athletic neighbors,  it never seems to be a conversation point.   But I have become more self-conscious of late.   And some overheard references about being the “big guy” or being offered the BIG slice of birthday cake at parties, make me add several more minutes to the dog-walks, or my outdoor garden chores.   I started re-inflating the tires on my hybrid bicycle.   Doesn’t anyone note that I spent five days drinking only WATER during my last allergic digestive episode!

A hearty banana- walnut pancake breakfast, with bacon “garnish”;  a 75th birthday party for a friend at lunchtime – it was hot outdoors, even in the shade, so grazing at the snacks was little temptation;  finally, a grilled-fish taco  dinner with my wife’s home-made mango salsa. Of course,  I could only have a zing-less, salsa.   No habanero peppers in my garnish, please.

I may be passive -aggressive when it comes to eating these days.   Maybe if the food was less appealing,  like the burritos when I first got married, I’d pass up more meals.   Or I would eat a spoonful of food at mealtime were it still served like old Navy chow.   I started making Dexter and Comet, who clearly are ten to fifteen pounds over their optimum  weight,  eat less by putting less in their bowl at mealtime and not giving them a snack.  I feel better when “we’re” suffering together.

I blame “happily married -syndrome” for gaining weight.   Single men, who are still gym-junkies, adventuring rock-climbers, and marathoners are focused on their physique.   I am thirty years past my prime.   My dear wife is stuck.  The  warranty-return policy has long expired.

Or perhaps I am thinking like a survivalist in an age when the world’s going crazy.   I don’t have to outrun wolves in my dystopian view of the near-future,  I only have to gain a few weeks advantage on my thinner competition.

Now where is that protein bar?   It been 3 hours since I last ate that “healthy” paste.