This past week I turned 64 years young.  Part of my birthday present was Friday off work and a weekend in wine country.  On Friday morning my husband and I bicycled to a little breakfast place in Hollywood Beach CA (about a mile from my house) called Mrs.  Olsen’s.  We rarely get the chance to have breakfast together, let alone breakfast out.  My band cooperated, and then did its job.  I had my fill of a crab and shrimp omelet.  It was delicious, and I even had a dab of hollandaise with it by asking for it on the side and then dipping my fork into it and then the omelet.  Didn’t finish it, didn’t care.  I enjoyed the heck out of all of the wonderful flavors.  We bicycled home, packed and headed north for our weekend away.

Stopped in Santa Ynez and visited a favorite winery with its tasting room in an old adobe house that is beautifully landscaped with roses of every color and surrounded by giant oak trees which provide cooling shade from the September temperatures pushing triple digits.  We shared a glass of wine and a tapas plate (cheese, nuts, olives and dried cherries), some great conversation and a few quiet moments together with no worries or work intervening.

Then on up the 101 freeway to Paso Robles and a late dinner at a restaurant that serves all locally grown organic fruits and veggies.  The chef has a way with spices and we ordered 1 appetizer, 1 salad and 1 entrée and an extra plate for me.  Perfect!  Plenty for both of us and lots of goodies to taste.  The diver scallops that we ordered as the appetizer were to be served on jasmine rice and when I explained that I don’t eat rice they offered to serve them over kale or baby bok choy.  Wasn’t that nice?  And they were scrumptious.  It’s so much fun actually tasting food and savoring the flavors as I slowly chew each bite.

I woke up the morning of my birthday in a lovely hotel room in Paso Robles Wine Country in California.  I made a cup of coffee, a cup of protein and then headed to the gym for my morning workout.  This morning I chose swimming laps and swam for an hour, felt great and headed back up to the room to shower and dress.  By the way, I didn’t bother with the elevator, I trotted up the 3 flights of stairs to my room, just because I COULD!

My husband of 44 years and I then drove in the beautiful morning sunshine to the coast to the fun little town of Cambria.  We had brunch there at Linn’s, one of my favorites locally.  Once again I ordered an omelet and didn’t even attempt to finish it and never touched the potatoes or fruit that came with it.  Since the day was beautiful, the sun was shining and there was a light on shore breeze cooling it off we walked around town and did some shopping.  After a while we headed back towards Paso, enjoying the afternoon and visiting a few wineries was we wound through the hills and dales.  Beautiful countryside, rolling hills and oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and mile after mile of vineyards with grapes exploding on the vines looking ripe and ready for harvest.  What a relaxing afternoon.

Back to our room to get dressed for dinner.  No, not a formal dinner, a winery barbecue, western style which meant jeans and sandals for me.  I love casual!  Then we were whisked off, by limo, along with 3 other couples to a night of food, wine, music and dancing.  When there are big events up there they make it crazy to NOT use a limo service to get you to and from the event.  They also have local police officers supervising the parking of cars so nobody gets back behind the wheel who shouldn’t be.  Yes I drank wine, and had dinner.  While my plate had a couple of pieces of perfectly barbecued beef tenderloin, a slice of turkey breast with chipotle sauce and 2 tablespoons of corn, black bean and feta salad with a couple of slices of heirloom tomato on the side that is not what I ate.  I barely got through 1 slice of beef tenderloin, 1 bite of turkey, 1 slice of tomato and a spoonful of the salad.  My husband didn’t have to go back for seconds for himself though.

Later I indulged in a piece of chocolate cheesecake for dessert - happy birthday to me, and then danced, danced, danced the night away.  What fun!  A limo ride home and a good night’s sleep after a very full and satisfying 64^th birthday with my best friend and soul mate.  This one is going to be tough to top next year!

So that’s what my day was like eight years and three and one half months after having lap band surgery.

Had I not had surgery and still been alive let’s propose what the weekend might have looked like:

Friday morning would have begun with me getting slowly out of bed, removing my cpap machine, shutting off the oxygen and painfully walking down my stairs to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast.  That makes the big assumption that at 424 pounds I would still be able to use the upstairs bedroom.  There is always the probability that I would be forced to live on the first floor only of my house.  After sitting around drinking coffee, taking all of my morning meds for high blood pressure, asthma and pain, and eating a ginormous breakfast I would trudge back upstairs to take a shower and get dressed.  This ordeal would probably have taken me at least an hour since personal grooming tasks were becoming so very difficult 8 years ago.  No bicycle ride on a beautiful day, no postponing food.  Just forcing myself through a morning ritual that was exhausting.

Now we have to make the big assumption that I could still travel to head up to Santa Ynez and Paso Robles for my birthday.  The preparation for the trip would have been putting together my meds for the weekend, packing my cpap machine and a portable oxygen bottle, packing my clothes and attaching an electric scooter to some sort of carrier on the back of a vehicle.  Eight years more of carrying around 424 pounds would definitely have kept me from walking anywhere under my own power.  Once we were all packed up and ready to go my husband would have driven us to Santa Ynez.  I probably would have been taking pain meds too strong to allow me to drive.  When we reached the winery in Santa Ynez we would have to park in the back and unpack the scooter so I could get around the small area that allowed handicapped access.  No sitting under the oak trees for me, no standing at the bar inside talking with folks about the wines, etc.  And we probably would have ordered 2 tapas plates, one for me and one for my husband which I’m sure I would have helped him finish.  We are ready to pack up everything- get the scooter reloaded on the car and head up to Paso Robles.

Now we get to Paso Robles, check into the hotel, unpack my scooter, my c-pap, my oxygen and get upstairs to the room.  Whew, I’m exhausted just typing it, imagine if I were living it at 424 pounds or more?  Dinner, how about pizza to the room?  Kick back and watch TV and munch and drink away until bed time.  Then my evening meds, adjust my c-pap and oxygen and sleep.

Birthday morning arrives.  What do I do?  Am I going down to the pool?  Hell no, I am barely getting out of bed so exercise is certainly out of the question.  How about walking around Cambria?  Not happening, maybe on my electric scooter if the sidewalks are wide enough and the storefronts have room to let me in.  Climbing up a hill to a winery?  I don’t think so.  Barbecue Saturday night?  Maybe on my scooter, but that could be embarrassing to say the least.  Would I have had a happy birthday?  Probably, but happy would have been a relative thing.  And all of this only if my obesity had not killed me as of my 64^th birthday or before.

I am grateful every single day for this gift I have been given of a second chance at living my life, and I treat it with care and nurturing.