A quick trip to Vietnam

Delora's sister, an award-winning film and television director, recommended that Delora try a new iphone app called Histamatic.  She thought it would jazz up Delora's pictures.

Instead Histamatic is making every picture Delora takes look like she's in Vietnam in 1920...

Mallorca, Spain 2010

Sometimes, Delora's pictures look as though she developed old film after stomping on it a few times... 

Mallorca, Spain 2010

Mallorca, Spain 2010

Sometimes Delora's pictures look "artsy"...

Mallorca, Spain 2010

Thanks Delora's sister.  

The Ashram - Day whateva'

Dinner at the Ashram

Delora ia truly hungry starving from the time she rises, at 5am, until she falls, face first, into bed at 9pm.  She tries to embrace the hunger as a Ghandi-ish virtue, but she can't because she's starving.  Instead, her survival instincts kick-in and she finds herself plotting to steal food.  She eyes a bowl of oranges on the hallway table and justifies the act of lifting a few into her sunhat while she strolls by. Mallorca orange groves are famous for producing some of the juiciest specimens around, so juicy, they need only be half peeled, then bitten like an apple.  Delora, the savage, can devour these oranges in seconds while sweet juice gushes onto her face and into her hair before it hits her bathroom sink.

Luckily, Delora's dear friend, Catherine, is her roommate.  She's the kind of girl who doesn't mind that Delora has turned into Oliver Twist and has been stealing food and eating it over their shared sinks.  Only once does she mention that Delora has left orange peels scattered around the crime scene.  She is not tempted by Delora's bars; she knows about the dangers of artificially sweetened food and she's made of superior moral fiber.  She doesn't even waiver when Delora finds a blackberry tree on the estate and stoops down to pick a berry off the ground and taste it.  That's right, Delora stooped down, picked a berry off the dirty, dirt ground, and put it into her mouth without a moment's hesitation.  Has Delora ever mentioned that she has a borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to cleanliness?  Apparently OCD is not an issue when the choice is between germs and eating.

Here are some of the activities the Ashram plans to keep their guests busy (so they can't hunt for food):

Delora and Catherine being tricked into thinking that they're going on a nice boat ride when they're really being dropped on a beach where they're going to hike straight up a giant mountain to hike through CLOUDS

Other unsuspecting Ashram joy riders

One little mountain...

Clouds...

Delora's mid-day snack

Delora was supposed to choose a total of 5 nuts OR 5 raisins OR a mix of both, still totaling 5.  Using a sleight of hand maneuver, Delora manages to palm 8!  This is the moral decay -- the quest for food -- that preoccupies Delora as she hikes for hours and hours up the steep mountains.  Later Delora will raid the orange bowl before falling into bed and waving goodnight to Catherine across the room.  But Delora is making peace with her hunger, as all good supermodels in training must, and she is staying in the moment and detoxing all at the same time -- when she isn't hunting for food.

The Ashram - Day 1

Delora and friends arrive at the Ashram, a beautiful house rented from Richard Branson's ex-wife, near the port of Soller (in Mallorca) at around 1 pm.  Smiling thirty-something hunks greet the guests.  They'll be running the program this week.

Luckily, Delora and friends have ingested jamon paninis at the airport, since there is nothing resembling lunch here.  Guests are encouraged to hang by the pool until it's time for them to weigh in.  Delora meets some of the other guests, then it's her turn to step on the scale.  Normally, Delora would strip down to nothing to be weighed, but in front of these two Ashram Gurus, BEFORE the Ashram program has transformed her into a supermodel? Awkward! She'll just keep her clothes on, thank you very much.  The cutest guru weighs and measures every possible area capable of holding Delora's fat, recording the details carefully, then tells her to get changed for a short hike.

Delora and her new Ashram comrades take to the hills with poles and backpacks filled with water.  Delora has purchased a "camelback" for this week of hiking, and has chosen a zip-front model with a medium sized "bladder" to hold water.  Delora's own bladder, the one inside her body, is full before she even hits the hills, but Delora doesn't know these new friends well enough to drop trow yet.  The group will hike steep mountains with loose stone pathways and use the poles for balance.  Delora has been warned about this first hike by Delora's sister who was almost "man down" on day one when she completed this program a couple of years ago. They call it a short hike, where short equals the hardest hike you've ever taken in your life.  Delora feels strong and lets her Alpha dog run out in the front of the pack at first.  Soon the Alpha dog is so tired, that Delora is grateful to be walking her beta bitch in the middle of the pack.

Later, the group sits in a circle as each person tells a little something about themselves.  Each is asked why they have come to the Ashram.  Delora refrains from saying that she's come to look like a supermodel and instead says that she's here to get fit.  The Ashram promotes a diet free from caffeine, sugar, artificial sweeteners, meat, seafood, poultry, dairy, flour, fat. Delora wonders what's left, then realizes that the only food groups remaining are fruit, vegetables and soy products (is soy a food group?)  Delora focuses on a lecture about detoxing the body from bad substances, but obsesses over how quickly she can get to the Zone bars hidden in her lingerie bag.  Apparently, Delora's face gives her away, because the Cute Guru looks straight at Delora and says that anyone who brought bars, or other forbidden foods to the Ashram isn't doing anything to help their detox.  Delora keeps a straight face and nods in agreement until she can lock herself into her bathroom and choke down bar #1(chocolate coconut) and bar #2 (yogurt) before her 8:30 PM bed time.

Delora blogs again ... from the Ashram

Delora decides to overcome 9 months of excessive jamon intake and negate her recently acquired bad Spanish habits by spending one week at the Ashram in Mallorca.  Usually located in Calabasas, California, twice a year The Ashram comes to Mallorca, Spain to change the scenery a bit and kick some serious culo.  How bad can things be at a place that looks like this?

Mallorca, Spain

This is the same program countless actresses and Sports Illustrated models endure each year to lose those extra pounds the week before an important shoot.  It's with this image, in Delora's mind's eye, of a Sports Illustrated Model body with Delora's head soldered on top, that convinces her to pay good money to share a room, rise at 5 am, do an hour of yoga, eat 2 TBS of Museli and a disgusting soy yogurt, hike for FIVE hours, eat a green salad, do another hour of exercise (weights anyone?) followed by a final hour of yoga, inhale some steamed veggies mistakenly called "dinner", and drop like a stone into bed at 8:30 pm.
But with summer approaching and a layer of fat on Delora's backside shaped like this:

Delora realizes that no program is too radical.

The night before Delora leaves for Mallorca she decides to read the not so fine print on her Ashram email.  Delora exhales an expletive when she realizes that she was supposed to be detoxing for the past two weeks.  Luckily Delora doesn't have too many bad habits, but she does have one very, very serious Earl Grey habit (with Splenda) that she enjoys and plans to keep.  Furtively, she stashes the teabags and the banned artificial sweetener in her suitcase and, just in case she's on the verge of death, adds 8 Zone bars.

At the last supper before she ships out, where sake and champagne are consumed along with healthy Japanese delicacies, Delora asks her friend C. about her experience at the Ashram at few years ago:

"I lost alot of weight," she admits, "but I decided that paying money to sleep on a lumpy bunk bed with a stranger beneath me while I was starving, wasn't exactly something I wanted to try again."

Delora is going to the Ashram with two friends from Madrid, so at least she won't have a stranger in the next bed.  Delora finishes her glass of champagne and hopes for the best...