Tuesday, December 16, 2008

An Old Indy Column; Some Jesus Size

When someone tells you that you are getting “some Jesus big,” and they aren’t referring to your fame, that ain’t good.I dropped in to visit an elderly couple in the community recently. Skipper Roy was “out b’ the door,” his wife said, as she excused herself to call him in from the garden to visit with me a while. Roy first proved his eye sight to be quite good when he read aloud from the upside down newspaper his son had spread out before him on the kitchen table. “My goodness,” I said to the almost eighty year old, “your in some fine shape.”He looked me up, then down, nodded, and answered, “yup. And your getting some Jesus big.” Well now. How does one answer that, I wondered. He was right, I did need to loose a few pounds. I am not really that bad, but I am certainly big for me. Why? Too much grub, too little exercise and too much time spent on me arse in front of the computer writing, I suppose. I am not good at dieting. If I’m not bad enough already, depriving myself of food makes me even more wickedly contrary than I am on my best worst day, and I am not alone it seems. A good girlfriend is on a diet now and the poor thing is starving herself to the point of insanity, in fact, the gal is downright surly. We took the kids to a show in town and on our way back home I passed a car that was driving much too slowly- except for the times we approached a passing lane that is. For those, he would speed up. Typical idiot of a driver, right, but nothing about that bothered me and my fully satisfied self. Well, just as we were finally passing the fella, Little- Miss-Salad-Muncher shot up with her dainty middle finger and gave buddy an unfriendly salute-complete with a matching mouthed explicit.I was shocked, even more so when the fella pulled up along side us at our local community gas station an hour later. Diet-Lady was just about to give it to him again when I held her hand down and speed away. See, while dieting may make you look good, it doesn’t do much for ones disposition. Speaking of dispositions, it was Blair’s turn to have a bit of a bad one last week. He was flying home on his turn around and what should have been a quick trip down turned into a nightmare when a medical emergency caused his flight to be redirected to Pearson in Toronto. After sitting for over an hour on the runway, they took off for Halifax. Conditions in Halifax were too bad for landing so, two hours of circling later, they headed for Montreal. Four hours in a line up left Blair with a flight that departed the next evening. A sour face and a sympathetic ear got him the last seat on an earlier flight-if he was fast enough to make it to the gate. He hustled that scrawny arse of his and miraculously made it. Just after we picked him up at the airport I started to feel slightly off. His first night home I kept that man up all night-with my very unattractive hack of a cough. I had the flu. Blair, either for compassionate or self preservation purposes, took Brody to his folks for the next few nights. That way we could all get some rest-him especially I figure. Thankfully, with my strong will to live and one healthy immune system, I was back in fine form a few days later. One good thing that comes out of being ill is that I figured I had probably lost a few pounds. I excitedly jumped into my jean shorts and burst the zipper out of the damn things as I was hauling them over my hips.I saw it as a sign summer was over and gave them a toss.I’ll worry about dieting after Blair goes back to work, after all, I wouldn’t want to be contrary-or more so than usual anyway-as well as being “some Jesus big.” Blair told me not to worry about it. I am, he swore, just perfect. “Really?” I smiled, thinking him to be just about the sweetest man alive. “Sure,” he answered, as he headed for the door, “cowboy’s love fat calves.”If only I could have caught him. Now there’s motivation for me. I think I’ll take up running

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