Adult Braytheth

I had my first appointment with an orthodontist.

Have I mentioned that I'm 39 years old?

I sat in a waiting room with a bunch of mouth-breathing 13-year-olds and wondered if this was my future. Would I be a mouth-breather? Would I curl my lips away from my teeth in what was either a hormonal sneer or a tender-lipped evasive maneuver?

Oh lord.

I'm 39 years old and I'm about to wear braces for the next year and a half.

Have I mentioned that I'm in advertising?

Thank goodness most of my creative presentations are done via the phone thanks to my out-of-state client. But you can still hear a mouth-breather over the phone, right? And I haven't even considered the lisping yet.

Can you hear me pitching a new headline? How about, "Thervice with a thmile!"

Or maybe it won't be that bad? I've never worn braces. Does everyone lisp? The orthodontist also informed me that I'll need to use rubber bands to correct my bite. I'm assuming that means I'll have rubber bands scissoring across my mouth. I seem to recall my sister intentionally shooting rubber bands across the dinner table when we were kids. That could add some excitement to meetings. If anyone says anything remotely annoying, I can just fire off a round of wet rubber bands across the conference table.

*Thwack thwack thwack!*

The account people will be grabbing their faces, confused and momentarily disarmed by an elastic saliva assault from creative.

"I think you need to reconthider thothe creative changeth, my friend," I'd say. Then I'd narrow my eyes and menacingly open my mouth. "Do we underthand each other?"

The good news is that even though I'm not a candidate for the clear plastic Invisalign® braces, I can get clear crystal braces. I prefer to think of them as "designer braces." Mine are called Radiance® and as the brochure assures me, "Radianth ith confidenth."

They're made from "pure sapphire." So basically I'll have bejeweled teeth. Bling, if you will. The brackets themselves should be invisible (from a reasonable distance) and the only thing you'll be able to see is the wire. Allegedly.

In any case, it's definitely better than having a mouthful of metal. And to be honest, I feel fortunate that I have the opportunity to get my teeth fixed at such an advanced age.

*Reaches for cane.*

Before I can get the braces, however, I have to have some work done on my teeth so they're strong enough to endure a year and a half of orthodontic treatment. I've got to swap out my thirty-year-old fillings and have some work done on my gums.

(Some of you just cringed in sympathy for me. For that, I thank you.)

But never fear. There will be a photoblog once I get the designer grill.

Mandy's Law of Little Black Dresses and Big Bad Bikinis

I had a completely self-esteem redeeming evening with a little black dress on Friday night.

I rode the wave of self-confidence and Mystic Tan® to the Nordstrom dressing room on Martin Luther King day because I had a dream. A dream of looking good in a bikini. A dream of buying my first new bathing suit in seven years.

Seven years ago I was a skinny rail of a woman, a leftover bag of bones after going through an atrocious breakup, and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Since then I've quit smoking, married a lovely self-esteem-building man, had another baby, started weight training, and gained 10 pounds. Yeah yeah yeah, it's ten pounds of muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. You could grate cheese on my abs. Blah blah blah.

Tell that to the florescent lights and the carnival mirror in the dressing room at Nordie's. You'd think if there were a kinder, gentler dressing room somewhere in the galaxy, it would be at the Nordstrom store where service is supposed to be top shelf. Right?

I should have known when the three saleswomen behind the Women's Active counter ignored me, that change was a' brewin' at my once-favorite department store. I wandered over to the next department, called Encore, where a saleslady tried to chase me back into Women's Active.

I actively informed her that the three saleswomen there were useless. She begrudgingly let me into a dressing room that could accommodate me, the baby, the stroller and the seven-year-old. I then got to work trying on black bikinis. My son got to work folding himself into the trifold mirror and then announced, "I can see 18 of me!" When I looked at myself in the same mirror, I thought the same thing. Though I was not as excited about it.

*Sigh*

So it turns out that one magical Friday with a little black dress is not enough to combat a Monday with three cruel bikinis.

Call it Mandy's Law.

Oh, You Hilarious Salad, You!

I'm on a diet, so when I saw this post about how many stock photos there are of women laughing with salads, I thought it was the most hysterical thing I'd ever seen.

Hahahaha!

Oh Salad! You minxy little roughage, you! How you amuse and delight me. In fact, I love you so much you bring out the wild animal in me. The one that is foraging in the woods for food:

Nom. Nom. Nom.

In fact, eating salad has made me feel soooo comfortable in my skinny skin skin, that I've taken to eating salads while wearing as little clothing as possible:

Sure my co-workers have started to complain, but look at me! I look fabulous!

Okay.

So I'm a little on edge. I've given up bread- and pasta-like carbs in the name of losing the last 7 pounds from The Dancing Baby and The Quitting Smoking. It's Day 5 and I've already lost 2 pounds. I look great but I feel so very hostile. Which makes me think: Where are all the photos of Homicidal Women with Salads?

If you do a Google Image search, what you get is a lot of pictures of angry women, and then a lot of laughing women with salads. But never the twain shall meet.

Oh, and you get this:

This is actually a pretty good representation of how I feel without carbs.

To be fair, I have lost 34 lbs. since April of last year without actually dieting. How did I do it?

Well, first, I gave birth.

That took care of about 23 lbs. almost immediately or within a few weeks. Then I got a personal trainer and I lost another 7 lbs. By December I had lost another 2 lbs. and here we are the first week in January and my five days without carbs have successfully brought me down yet another 2 lbs. Clearly, I am the most awesome dieter ever.

I think I only need to lose another 6 lbs. and then I will be Susan Powter.

So now that I've gone without carbs for 5 days and have lost a mind-boggling 2 lbs. I feel qualified to dole out dieting advice on the internet. I'm basically a dieting expert. Here is what I have to tell you. There is one thing and one thing only that has gotten me through this week without going full Angry Monkey on my husband and children:

Mango Smoothies

Yes. That's right. Go directly to Whole Foods or Trader Joes and buy a bag of frozen Mango Chunks. Yes, they really call them Mango Chunks. How appetizing, yes. I put a cup of skim milk in my BlendTec blender, a scoop of protein powder, and about a half cup of frozen Mango Chunks. Blend until it looks like ice cream and there you have your after-dinner snack. It's sweet, it's loaded with protein, and you feel like you're not denying yourself everything good in the universe.

Angry Monkey says: "Stop being a bitch and have a smoothie!"