For my New Year’s resolutions, I vowed to lose weight.
So far, I’m off to a great start having already shed 4 pounds.
But according to my wife, I actually gained weight.
So I checked my records and confirmed that my computations are, in fact, accurate.
But she says the proper way to determine such loss is to simply compare the weight from day one to the present. “It’s a rather elementary calculation,” she says.
But I see nothing wrong with my system wherein I determined that last year I gained 6 pounds from day one, whereas this year, I only gained 2. You don’t have to be a genius to conclude that’s a 4-pound deficit.
“I’m on a trajectory to eventually get down to svelte,” I crowed. “It’s just a matter of time.”
But my wife says I’m on a trajectory to the circus.
So she insisted she be in charge of my daily intake.
She’s even rationing that box of rainbow cookies I received for Christmas. They’re delicious chocolate-covered, almond flavored, apricot-filled, tri-color pastries from Ferrara Bakery in New York City.
I’m allocated only one per day.
But while I may have to suffer that injustice and others, I’m fortunate that she was in charge of all the Christmas gift-buying, so I was relieved of that grueling burden.
Except when it came to purchasing her gift, leaving me with that unenviable task.
I can’t buy her clothes because if I buy something too large it’s insulting, and too small even worse.
So I bought gift certificates to restaurants.
And because I go with her, those certificates are basically half mine.
And, you can argue, that since they’re paid out of our t , the gifts wind up costing me a quarter of the real cost.
Yet she questions my math acumen.
But beyond gift certificates, I often contribute my homemade baked goods to friends and relatives.
That’s because I learned about pastry-making from none other than Julia Child when she offered her prized instruction on the campus of the University of California San Diego years back.
My goal was to perfect the art of bagel-making and also create great pizzas so I wouldn’t have to move back to New York.
My wife also likes to offer her own original creations as she’s a great cook in addition to being a talented artist.
As is her sister, Rosemarie.
Each Christmas, Rosemarie presents us with a beautiful print of another of her fabulous paintings of the churches she has visited throughout the world.
Coincidentally, I also consider myself an artist of sorts, thanks to my Photoshop skills.
I like to enhance the paintings of famous artists such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Raphael.
My wife suggests inserting myself into the works of such masters is shameless and she’s appalled that I dare call them enhancements. I thought they were rather irable. Like the one I titled “Irv with a Pearl Earring,” or “Brooklyn Gothic” or Mona Meesa.”
So, in deference to her, I’m calling them tributes.
Happy new year, dear reader.
Erdos is a freelance humor columnist. him at [email protected].
