"Maybe You Could Get a Mumu."

Okay, so I'm diverting from my usual stories about my beloved son, my crazy family, and the general irks and affirmations of adoption life.

Today I'm going to talk about dresses. And chocolate. And a desk job. And how a mix of all three is a very bad combination.

A few months ago, before my passport expired, my sister and I went south to find wedding dresses. She's the bride, I'm the maid (matron?).

She found a lovely halter necked white gown, with red accents. I bought an off-the-rack formal strapless gown in the same shade of red. We brought them home, stuffed them in our closets, and got busy with life.

I got a new job (yay!) that took me from a daily work routine of running around the airport like a discombobulated chicken to a desk job offering supports by phone and email. And my colleagues share my devotion to chocolate. Yes, a VERY bad combination.

They actually handed me a disclaimer on my first day warning me that I would -- with no uncertainty -- be gaining ten pounds within a month.

I didn't believe them.
I should have listened.

Last week I pulled my bridesmaid's dress out of the closet to make sure it still fit.
It didn't.
I couldn't get the zipper up.
Oh, the horror.

So I hit the gym running. Between ten and twenty km daily. (Yes, that's almost a half marathon.) I stopped buying slurpees (what's a few thousand calories between friends?), and I resisted every piece of chocolate offered by my friends here in Burnaby.

A few days go by, and we try on the dress again. This time I get my husband Kevin to try and zip it up. It works, but I can't breathe. I KNOW if it feels terrible, it probably looks terrible, too.
As if I didn't need to hear it, Kevin tried to reassure me, "Well, it doesn't look THAT bad. Maybe you could get a shawl.... or a mumu to wear over it."

Kevin's funeral will be held next Tuesday at 4pm. (Kidding. Maybe.)

WHY!? Why on earth do we women do this to ourselves?? Men pick up their tuxedos the day of the wedding. If their gut spilleth over, they grab the next size up from the row of identical black pants. They move a button over on their jacket and presto! Ten pounds disappears.

No, we women choose dresses that defy the laws of gravity (staying up on their own accord, but only if your body conforms EXACTLY to its dimensions). We can't gain a few pounds, or our zippers will bust and our husbands will make suicidal suggestions about ordering mumus. If we lose weight (like I did before my best friend's wedding) a seamstress will have to add emergency spaghetti straps to keep the gown from falling off on the dance floor or slipping into dangerously revealing territory in front of your friend's creepy Uncle Norbert during the formal church wedding.

My sister says "just wear something else! It doesn't matter!" Oh, right. She can be the glowing bride at the summer wedding and I'll show up in one of the three dresses that fit me: a beach cover up, my own wedding gown, or the velvet dress I wore to Great-Aunt Bea's funeral.

The good news is, I'm fairly confident I can get into the dress by W-Day. (I adore running, and it's a fantastic way to burn calories.) But I hate diets. I loathe the word, and I swear this is my first and last time on one. I love food too much to restrict myself, and I don't care if I pick back up the ten pounds that somehow leaped onto my hips when I walked in the door of my new job.

For the next wedding, I'll just order a tux.
Or a mumu.