Beverly West - Please Dont Feed the Daisy: Living, Loving, and Losing Weight with the Worlds Fattest Dog

Love, Food, and Dogs

F alling in love, a great meal, and puppies are lifes showstoppers. Theyre God forcing us to pay attention. In their presence, you arent thinking about anything except How wonderful! How delicious! How cute! For that instant, theres no past, no future, no causes or consequences, no puddle in the hallway or number on the scale, no bottom line. Theres only the uncomplicated enjoyment of the here and now. You string a few months of moments like this together, and youll be surprised where you wind up.

Which I guess is how I find myself now, at the age of forty-seven, living with four dogs, one cat, two turtles, and fifteen fish in a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, married to a man seventeen years younger than me. And Ive never been happier.

Of course, this isnt at all the life I expected. Im not exactly sure what I had in mind for myself, but Im pretty sure that whatever it was involved fewer dogs. Probably a bigger apartment, too, and Im certain a smaller waistline. But I love how life is mysterious like that. It never brings what you expect, and yet manages to deliver exactly what you need, whether or not you know it at the time.

When Jason and the dogs came along, mostly what it felt like was a whole lot of chaos coupled with an alarming lack of shelf space. But as our puppies grew into dogs, and eventually had puppies themselves, Jason and I, quite unbeknownst to ourselves, were building a home and a family of our own. What Ive come to realize is that what initially felt like the world falling apart was actually just the growing pains of a new and better one being born.

This is the story of our familys adventure with love, food, and dogs, all of which have taught us some very important lifelong lessons, like how to go with the flow, how to trust the unknown, and how to have faith in the recipes of life. Weve learned that mistakes create some fabulous taste treats, that we can draw healthy boundaries and maintain them, and that we can make and sustain the changes that we want to make in ourselves, our bodies, and our lives. And most importantly, weve learned to spend as much time as possible appreciating the small moments and the smaller portions of life, and counting our blessings along with our calories, four dogs, one cat, two turtles, and fifteen fish at a time.

O ne day, Jason and I went out for a cheese-burger, and came home with a puppy.

It happened just like that. Like most life-changing events do. And when I really stop and think about it now, it was probably one of the stupidest ideas wed ever had. Although its a good thing we didnt realize it then, because it also turned out to be one of our finest hours.

And of course, you have to forgive yourself during times like these. In the aftermath of a sudden and fundamental shift in business as usual, like 9/11 was in New York City, most of us felt apart and aside from everyday life for a while. It was as if everything stopped, life held its breath, and everybody just waited to see what the lay of the land would be like once the dust settled. Until then, the regular rules and regulations of life just didnt apply. This included the rules and regulations about regular exercise, smoking, trans fats, anti-anxiety meds, alternate-side-of-the-street parking, drinking, romance, and puppies, to name just a few.

I suspect that Jason had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen that day, but I, as usual, was only thinking about the next fry fix. In the toxic dust and confusion that plumed perpetually from downtown Manhattan in those weeks and months following 9/11, carb-depleting had lost all of its appeal, and I didnt want to eat anything unless it was battered and fried.

I think theres a diner on the next block that has fabulous onion rings, said Jason, and grinned at me that way he does. Jason always did know just how to get to me. And being a native son of Ohio, Jason knew from onion rings. There was no way I was going to ignore a recommendation of his in that department. He was a true connoisseur. And then he said coyly, I think theres a pet store right next door. And I think its adoption day. Can we go look at the puppies, pleeeaaasse?

I rolled my eyes, but of course I was going to say yes. I could never say no to Jason, not since the day Id met him three years before. He was a nineteen-year-old dancer/barista back then, but Im pretty sure hed lied and told me he was twenty. Not that this was much of a distinction, since he still wasnt old enough to get into a baralthough this never seemed to stop him. Jason was and is unusually poised for his age. And even back then, except for the times when he was wearing a plastic shirt and had glued rhinestones on his eyes, he looked almost legal.

I, on the other hand, was a thirty-six-year-old author then, and Im pretty sure I told him that, but somehow this didnt seem to matter. From the moment our eyes met over an avenue full of Macys floats and a platter piled high with questionable-looking lox at that infamous Thanksgiving Day Parade brunch, wed been inseparable. It was one of the many cosmic imponderables that would come to characterize our relationship. There were a million reasons why we shouldnt fit, and yet, for some reason, we did.

Here we are on the day that we met (see next page).

Those drinks we have in our hands were really good, although as you can see, they are both almost gone. We had about four or five of those theme concoctions that afternoon in order to chase that indigestible lox. Jason figured out how to make them and we drink them every Thanksgiving now. Jason calls them Macys Day Floats. Take one out for a test drive the next time youre in the mood to defy gravity.