The Bug Spray Diet

While recently "camping" at Pollack Pines with friends, I came up with a brilliant new diet plan that I coined; “The Bug Spray Diet.” My mother warned me repeatedly to make sure the girls were thoroughly doused in repellent, as West Nile disease runs rampant in mosquitoes. (Now you know where I get my dramatic flair.)

Anyway, the Bug Spray Diet guarantees weight loss. This is how it works; saturate yourself and your darlings with bug repellent wipes. You are guaranteed to repel flies, tics, gnats and anything breathing. Another plus is no matter how many times you wash your hands with anti bacteria soap, the repellent will cling to the back of your French nail manicure. Consequently everything you touch will taste like bug spray. Bug sprayed bacon, bug sprayed cheeseburger, and even bug sprayed smores.

Anything you attempt to consume will taste so repelling you will finally give up eating altogether. Drink lots of mountain water to keep hydrated and this diet plan becomes a three day fast. You will love your scale.

Our daughters adored "camping." Well, lets just say we call camping staying in a "cabin" which was really a trailer with fake log siding. My friend Lorie warned me it was rustic, (it was more like "rustique.") A working shower and bathroom as well as a small kitchen is the closest I get to roughing it. My friends took to calling me "La Reina" which means queen in Spanish.

Small spaces are not a claustrophobics idea of a good time. Especially when my husband becomes especially amorous in nature. John had another name for it, but we will just leave that out, for the sake of my parents.

“You have got to be kidding!” I said to John when I recognized that look of love in his eyes. In my minds eye he morphed into a huge buck with enormous antlers while I was a deer in the headlights. Like a squirrel I quickly scampered up the nearest tree while he growled like a grizzly below.

Once again, I am forced by aging to understand my dear mother. When we were growing up she embarrassed my sister and I by insisting on renting a state of the art motor home for the mountains, while the rest of our church group camped out in tents. She endured a lot of teasing, but I vividly recall her saying something like, “when you're my age, sleeping on the ground with bugs crawling on you won't be quite as appealing.”

Turns out that the idea of laying my 42 year old fybromyalgic body on the dirt just isn't as appealing as it was when I was ten. I survived "camping" for my kids who got to princess wave on a 4th of July float, ride horses, swim and hike. The truth is all I could think of while laying on a hard full size mattress in cramped quarters was our king size bed, feather pillows and down comforter. Mirror mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all.