Nice 'n Easy

News alert. It has now been found that we can burn calories by doing the following things without a break on a Saturday. Call it the miracle weight-loss plan.

1. Driving 35 minutes to Cresskill to meet your brother at 9ish A.M.to pack up your Dad's lovely Sunrise Assisted Living apartment that he never had a chance to live in, b/c he had to go to the hospital for six weeks and now needs a skilled nursing facility. Calories burned: 1,000.
2. Sighing at the brass plaque near the door to apt. 205, which says: John Garbarini. He would have liked that, the way it looked so official and elegant. Nice touch the place had. Sifting through 87 years of things a man kept, through life in apartments as a child, young adult and newlywed, and in a house for 50 years. Things like prayer books, family photos, anniversary cards to your mother, birthday cards from his young daughters. Screwdrivers, coins, Tom Collins glasses, videotapes. Extra pairs of eyeglasses, and his 25-year Rolex watch from the pharmaceutical company. And through the many things you and your siblings have bought him in recent years to keep him [you all had hoped] happy, entertained, safe and independent: the sleek, black flat-screen TV, the DVD player, the computer table, the pill boxes, the blood pressure checker, the undershirts and socks and cleaning products. The shower chair, the vaporizer, the microwave. It breaks your heart. You all tried so hard. Calories burned: 13,000.
3. Waiting, waiting, waiting, for the friends with the truck who were supposed to meet you there at 9 but don't arrive until 2:30. [Your brother had to leave by 11, to go visit Dad in Montclair before heading back to NYC.] Having stressful phone calls with them. Rescheduling a long overdue salon appointment to cover inches of gray hair. [You were so happy, you finally had the money to go.] Using big time gap to try to nap on Dad's recliner, going to the grocery store for a sandwich for you and peanut butter, bananas and plums for your daughter [back home], talking to Diane at the Sunrise front desk, and to Jean, a resident sitting on a white rocker on the front porch. Before you know it, crying to Jean over your Dad, over how hard it is to watch him grow old and suffer, especially after you recognize that she is a kind soul. She shares her private sadnesses with you, too. She tells you how hard it was to lose her mom many years ago, and her own two brothers [one never came back from the war--the other did, but later died]. You see in the sunlight that the inner corner of her right eye is damp. You feel sad to think of all the older people who want to tell their stories but can't. You wish you could change the world. Calories burned: 14,999.
4. Driving, driving again. Your appointment was for 2:15. Friends Pepsi and Pedro [with truck] don't arrive til 2:30, and you've already changed your appt. to that time. The hip young woman at the salon calls you while you are finally driving back, and you have to sheepishly admit you won't be there till 3. But the Saturday traffic is bad, and you arrive at 3:15. Stupid Saturday drivers. You want to shout at them and honk your horn, but you don't. So you can't get color and cut, both of which you need, but just color. Calories burned: 3,500.
5. Sitting at the salon for almost two hours. Beauty has its price, especially when it involves special steps like mixing color, covering all those stubborn roots, applying toner and doing a perfect blowout. Calories burned: 3,000.
6. Having dinner, trying to eat vegetables, but taking most of them home in a box. Checking your garage, to see that Pepsi and Pedro safely deposited the stuff going to Montclair. [It could not be put in your house, b/c that is under construction from top to bottom.] Driving back to Clifton to take the dog out, but seeing that she has already done her business on the rug, which stresses you out greatly. Calories burned: 2,000.
7. Wanting desperately to take a nap but having to drive back to Montclair again to get daughter, who is back from her day in NYC with friend, and drive her to get birthday card and money to put in card, and then drive her to birthday party. Calories burned: 1,500.
8. Writing for over one hour, because it chronicles your day and helps calm you. Calories burned: 500.
9. Lying on couch at 10:05 P.M. to read October issue of Allure, with Blake Lively on cover. Dog on your belly. Await call from daughter when party is over at 11, and do one more 25-minute round trip drive from Clifton to Montclair. If you can keep your eyes open. Husband is in Canada, you have no choice, can't really ask parents from Montclair to carpool over to Clifton. You will go it alone. Calories burned: 699.
10. Stress that through it all, there is so much you have not done. The dishes. The return calls on how your Dad is doing, to Aunt Gloria, Uncle Jack, your cousin Annie. Calories burned: 1,700.

Total calories burned: 41,898.  Not bad for a day where you were basically stuffed in the car or standing still. Not bad at all. Your white denim skirt is rumpled, but your hair looks good, your Dad's belongings have been moved, and you held onto all the sentimental things, to sort through when life allows. Job well done.