We’re not talking weight here. If so, you’d see little jubilant exclamation points and smiley faces. No, we’re talking height. Here’s the story: I used to be five feet, eight and a quarter inches. In my day this meant people were always asking me how tall I was as if they needed to know for the statistics sign in front of Barnum and Bailey’s freak show. Others would reassure me that I could always become a model as if no other career would be open to a girl of such strange dimensions—I was also extremely skinny, the euphemism for flat-chested though even when I became non-flat-chested I looked as if I were because of my slump. Never mind. The point is I would have loved to have been shorter though I never actually prayed for that to happen— it didn’t occur to me that it could.

Well it did. I am now five feet five and need once again to redraw my self-portrait not to mention reshorten a few pairs of pants–from when I was five feet six last year. It is now completely clear to me why an older female person is often described as a little old woman. Okay, I’m not exactly little but you get my drift which is defintely southward. Where will it or, more to the point, where will I end? Will family and friends be able to find me? Will I become Thumbelina on a walnut shell? At a diminishment of one inch per year I won’t be noticeable long so take a good look or, better yet, a picture.

Tip of the day: To prevent skeletal-shrinkage-- put up a bar/find a branch---and hang daily.

 De nada.