How’s that for click bait alliteration? If I am being totally honest, my sister Paula and I both wore pants during the first year of the pandemic. But, and it’s a big but…they were of the sweat, legging or pajama variety. There were no buttons or zippers acting as a barometer of our expanding mid-sections.

When the library closed in March of 2020, I went from getting 10k steps a day to sedentary sofa sloth who binged daily on sourdough bread and Tiger King. I blame Joe Exotic for my muffin top.

I know you’re probably confused by this post, (where’s the death? the vampires? the menopause?) but I will get there, pinky promise.

That third photo is of my sister and I in 2017. If memory serves, I was visiting her in California and we were at a movie theater watching Wonder Woman (WW). There is probably a box of Hot Tamales on my lap and a bucket of buttered popcorn goodness between our seats. Why? Because the whole point of going to the movie theater is to consume overpriced sweet and savory snacks.

Fast forward a few years to 2022. I had a new full time job and none of my work pants fit. When I bitched and moaned about buying new pants in a bigger size, my sister encouraged me to try WW, formerly Weight Watchers. I hemmed, I hawed, I blamed my lack of movement on the weight gain, but as my sister has told me for as long as I can remember, “You get fit at the gym and you get skinny in the kitchen.” In other words, Pam, if you’re stuffing your pie hole with endless slices of warm toasty fresh baked bread and butter, you can’t possibly work all those calories off on the treadmill and still have time for a full time job.

So, I joined.

Paula and I will be talking about our pantsless pandemic journey to WW on Zibby Owens’ podcast “Moms Don’t Have Time to Move & Shake” on July 21! You can tune in wherever you get your podcasts, like here on Apple Podcasts.

You can also witness my menopausal brain fog in action on this week’s What Fort Worth Reads.

If you are into menopausal vampires or death professions, and let’s be real, who isn’t? I would like to gently nudge you in the direction of your favorite online book retailer to purchase either of my books. These books are cheap, but never easy, and they both explore heavy topics with a dash of dark humor for palatability.

Speaking of patatable things, what’s your favorite snack that you smuggle into the movies?

Comment on this post and I will enter your name into a drawing on August 1 for a special prize.