Stress in the City

So I did it - I joined Weight Watchers. Which oddly has the same initials as Whale Watchers. Coincidence? I think not.

I joined with a work buddy which is good - so I have some live, in person accountability for diet, exercise and Ben (my hubster) is almost as good at counting points (the ww system of tallying food daily) as the online tracker. My weight loss will probably be slower but I'm hoping it'll be steady and because there are weekly meetings and weekly weigh-ins I will be able to post those here.

This week I weighed in at 225. Which is grand for two reasons: 1. I didn't gain any weight over the holidays and b. I lost a pound from Saturday to Monday. Hoo-Yah Massuh Chief.

And then came the stress by the truckloads...

I am enrolling my older son in 3 yr old pre-school. A good stress, but a stress nonetheless as he has a compromised immune system and this will be our first real foray into the big wide world o' germs and funk.

Normally, that would have been AT LEAST a half a bag of dark chocolate raisinettes worth of celebration/eating my feelings, which are the size and shape of a small hillock of worry. But I didn't.

Then there was the motherload of all shit storms...

My neighbor's cat got into my backyard and my dog killed it. And then my neighbor threatened to kill my dog. Literally. He's a hunter and owns guns.

Here's where the story gets more complicated: This summer, due to all the rain, the hill our fenced in backyard is built on began to erode and the dogs kept getting out despite all of our efforts to the contrary(these included lots of additional chain link and rebar - my dogs are crafty). Unfortunately, they did get out and Winnie killed the same neighbors 21 yr old dying cat. The fact that the cat was slowly dying isn't to excuse what happened but merely a fact of the situation. Ben had to get between my neighbor and my dog to keep him from killing her right then and there.

My dog is a cat killer. I have known this for a while. This is why she has a backyard that is surrounded by a six foot chain link fence and she's never allowed out of the yard without being on a leash and I have forewarned all my neighbors with cats not to let them come near our yard. I honestly felt I had done everything I could, but now the situation has escalated to the morosely ridiculous. And I think it is time I find her a new home, which is truly breaking my heart. And all I want to do is eat and cry, but since I'm trying really hard to learn how to NOT eat my feelings I am making up for it in the crying department like gangbusters.

I just don't trust my neighbors ability to control his anger. He has two more cats. And what if he lets them out in this weather and they go looking for warmth like I suspect the last one did? (we have a shed in our back yard and it is very easy to crawl under if your cat sized) What if it happens when I'm not home and I have to explain to my three year old why our dog has been shot in our own backyard? That I won't do.

So it seems the only answer is to find a new home for my first baby. My dear friend of almost 12 years, the one who never left my side when I was so sick I barely knew my own middle name. I have no idea what to do with all the guilt, sadness and stress I am experiencing. Normally, I'd just stuff it away with a mountain of sugar and salt - I ain't too picky when it comes to stress eating, and I just don't have any other coping skills other than crying until my eyelids look like ball park franks.

It would appear my resolve is being tested. Heavily. All I want to do is tell the powers that be to fuck off, win the lottery and move my family to the country, and eat in quiet peace. The only reality I have, however, involves a lot of swearing and kleenex.