Arty’s doctor told him to cut back on fried, fatty foods. Anything too rich or processed might send his body into cardiac arrest. To go from a heart attack at seventy-two seems wasteful, especially when your wife is a stunning woman, who’s barely sixty! Not only am I a classically beautiful, I’m in phenomenal shape and I cook dinner. Arty laughs at me for my small portions and no carb lifestyle, but how anyone can argue when I look this good is beyond me. Somehow though, Arty manages to argue. Thankfully, he’s off for a guy’s outing with his friends from the neighborhood. We’re all fortunate enough to have the only homes on our streets, tacky numbers and over populated roads are not things we’re burdened with in our neighborhood. The men will go for brunch, Arty will no doubt have something high in cholesterol and fatty acids, and then they’ll head to the driving range for a bout of golf. While he’s out of the house I’ll get in my 40 minutes of yoga, 40 minutes of Pilates, and 60 minutes of the Stairmaster. As a treat, since it’s golf day, I’ll turn on some reality TV drama about trashy housewives, and hop on the elliptical with my Bloody Mary in hand for another 60 minutes. What could be more relaxing?
After my leisurely workout I’ll mix another Bloody Mary and head to the hot tub for an hour or so. Doctors say that Vitamin D is very good for you. Why pop a pill when I can soak in the sun? Of course to save Juanita from excess laundry, I’ll save a towel and dry off in the warm sun. Once I’m fully dry, I’ll hop into a nice hot, steamy shower. I always coordinate my robe to the weather. Today’s forecast is supposed to be in the mid-nineties, warm enough for the orange robe. The red one is for days 100+ days, yellow is for the almost warm temperatures ranging from mid-eighties – low-nineties. The white one is for those chilly days between the dreadful mid-seventies and low-eighties.
By this point, the dinner hour will be rapidly approaching, it truly is incredible how quickly time flies when you’re busy, which means, I’ll have to start planning dinner. Even though Arty and I are blessed to have a housekeeper or two, landscapers, a darling team of pool men, and a few other luxury employees, I still prepare the meals. It’s my job as a wife to care for my husband. My favorite television home cook personality recently was dropped from her network, but there are countless website’s dedicated to her buttery version of Southern down-home cooking. Sometimes I like to get creative and make my own inspired recipes. Although my lean turkey burgers and roasted veggies seem to the healthy choices for my husband and his high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high risk health, they are not quite what the doctor ordered.
Arty loves my turkey burgers, having never seen one before was something he was determined to hate them. My recipe for those delectable patties includes the fattiest cuts of pork and beef the butcher could possibly provide. When I fry them on the fry top section of our stove, I insert a pat of lard in the middle, to hell with butter. Butter is for healthy people; lard is pure, deadly fat. The designated side dish for those patties is an (un)healthy sized portion of roasted broccoli and cauliflower. Though roasted veggies seem incredibly healthy, these babies are boiled in chicken broth and a bouillon cube. After they are strained, I throw them in a bowl with a half a stick of butter and a large sprinkle of salt, and toss them until every inch in covered with buttery, salty goodness. To keep up appearances of “healthy eating” I lay them out on a cookie sheet drizzle them with oil, some more salt, and some pepper for taste and roast them in the oven.
To cover my tracks I’ve implemented a rule on our date night dinners: neither of us is allowed to order anything healthy. It kills me, but the extra two to three hours I have to tack on to my regular workout are worth it. The big pink bow on the whole situation is how Arty raves about how the meals at home are much more filling and satisfying than what the newest five-star restaurant has to offer.
While picking out which deadly meal I’ll whip up for Arty, I’ll shake myself up a variety of martinis – all low calorie and tasty. Usually the flavors are inspired by the color of my robe: mandarins for orange, lemons for yellow, raspberries for red, and vanilla for white. It’s always to always look and feel good. Arty doesn’t understand that, he thinks it’s superficial. He never passes up an opportunity to remind me that I wasn’t like this before the money, followed by success, came. He seems to have forgotten that I’ve always been meticulous in what I eat, what I wear, and how I carry myself. Before his old body started betraying him, he was the same way: hard, driven, and almost in better shape than I was, almost. Now? Well, now it’s time for Arty to make a quick exit and for me to find someone who appreciates the time and sacrifice that I put into my marvelous home and body. There are some divine almost forty year olds managing the club… but until then I’ll start finding a way to fatten up fish and rice pilaf for my dear old husband.