Contagious

Lately, I've observed that two things are contagious.

Divorce is contagious. When I left Xman, within two years, Annushka's daughters were not only divorced, they used the same attorney I did. I'm always sad to hear about one divorce popping up because invariably two or three or four soon follow.

I don't blame myself at all for E's and T's divorces. E's had been crumbling from the time it began. Eventually, it got to the point where her husband, an alcoholic, did nothing but sit in the TV room, drink whiskey, and smoke. He never liked his son because he said Son of E was "too smart." As for Little E, he either paid no attention or bad attention to her. T's divorce was a given considering how hard she worked to get her man to the altar. He never wanted to marry her. He only wanted her to be the schickze on the side. When she got knocked up - and decided not to have an abortion this time - she was determined not only to marry him but to take him for everything she could squeeze out of him.

Another friend, now departed, told me, "You gave me the courage to leave my husband." And I sighed. It didn't sound like her marriage was that doomed, but you never know the truth about someone else.

On the up side, weight loss is contagious.

One of my recruiters has transformed herself. When I first met her, she was round. Her face was round. Her body was round. She always dressed immaculately and au courant, which astounded me a little. Hey, fat people, especially fat women, are supposed to dress in dark colors and be studiedly non-flamboyant. You get fat, you take a vow of celibacy. It comes with the territory. But not for her.

Recently, I saw her new picture on LinkedIn. She looked like a completely different person. If I hadn't seen her name attached to the photo, I never would have known it was her. I emailed her that she looked great. We talked later and she said that she'd had lap band surgery and had lost 126 lbs. She sent me a link to more photos, and I was astounded. I don't know how long it's taken her to lose so much weight. She told me she has 14 more lbs. to go.

Also, if you read Silk's blog, she has trimmed down and looks great, too. She went to a nutritionist who advised her on what sort of food plan she should adopt and Silk did. Latest photos on her blog show her looking pretty darn good.

My favorite waitress lost 65 lbs. It took me a while to realize it. She said it was for her blood pressure and generally not to feel so exhausted at the end of her shift. She works two or three jobs and is probably my age. Right now, I have a hard enough time dealing with one job and staying awake.

Yesterday, I ordered a couple of books from Amazon about the DASH diet. It sounds a lot like Weight Watchers, only it's geared to help deal with high blood pressure, which I have. And I'm tired of taking pills for it. I have a modest goal in mind. For the moment, I'll keep it to myself. But this is a start and I'm glad for it.