Getting rid of the Turkey Gobble: working out that jaw

Thanksgiving Day conjures some wonderful, homey, cuddly memories. Like getting a turkey drunk and watching Dad chase it around an enclosed, dirt yard before grabbing it by the neck and lopping its head off with a cleaver large enough to make Stephen King proud.

That was Honduras, this is America. I was told Martha Stewart inebriates her turkeys as well, before plucking and beheading. Do you think she actually does the beheading, or does a lackey from the back room. She definitely strikes me as the type of broad with no qualms watching the blood spurt in all directions, covering her linen-cotton mix apron in a Kandinsky-esque theme of randomness.

All things turkey are good, including the faux birds that vegetarians eat, the tofurkey. Regardless of carnivorous status, we must agree on one thing.

Turkey gobbles aren't attractive on anyone, including turkeys.

I know. At this point, you are wondering what turkey-gobble has to do with workout Wednesday blog #2. I'm getting there. First, you must have the backstory on the turkey gobble, that once-tight skin underneath a strong, hard jawline that resembles a tent awning after twenty years of torrential rain, snow and wind. Its taught, smooth surface now droops and sags in uneven patterns, flapping this way and that with each chew or three-consonant word. The same skin that has a ten-second delay after your head turns, the way my cat's jello-like underbelly swishes and swerves a minute after he turns towards me.

Now that you've been traumatized with the visual, do the self-gobble check. Look in the mirror, face front, then turn to either side. No cheating. No tightening of the jawline or stretching the neck like an ostrich. Relax, let the jowls down, and have a moment of honesty with yourself. No ones watching, the camera is off (promise).

If, when looking straight ahead, you lack the bulldog jowls on either side, be happy. You're a third of the way to winning.

Now turn to either side. Do you have skin that cuts the hypotenuse of the triangle between your the base of your neck and your chin? If the answer is yes, then you, my friend, have a turkey gobble.

This isn't meant to be hurtful, it's fact. Some blessed folks have the ability to keep the skin taught. My mother, is over an age that shall not be named, has never had a stitch in her body other than for childbearing purposes, nor a shot of botox, and wouldn't deign to get plastic surgery. This is the luck and beauty of her Swedish roots. She doesn't actually need it, since she lacks the necessary sagging skin.

I, on the other hand, see the initial signs. It is just a titch, in my words, the jawline is still strong, but the beginnings are occurring way way in the back, where I swallow. I fear this is the beginning of the end.

Frantic, I call mom, and ask for her secrets. She reminds of her words of wisdom she proffered to me as a 13 year old.

"Do you still loofa?" she asked.

"Of course," I replied, slightly offended. Loofa'ing, which my Swedish sisters have made a verb, involves a very elaborate system. Take a .99 cent loofa, or soft scrub you can purchase at any Walgreens, Target or drugstore of choice, use a soft cleanser, but if no cleanser is available, water is just fine. Rub this in circles, about 5-10 times in a particular area of the face, neck, neckline, chin, forehead, back of neck, or anywhere you don't want wrinkles to show up in 20 years. The key is not to do it hard, or you run the risk of breaking capillaries. The skin should sting slightly.

A standard loofah

"How much?" she inquires, testing my memory.

"Been doing it twice a day," I say proudly.

"That's the secret." She then went on to point out other people we know who haven't been as diligent as myself in using the loofa.

"Mom, I never do my throat," I said. Chinline yes, throat no. 

"Get going," she says. The skin regenerates every seven years, so says my aesthetician, and since he also does Sharon Stone and other celebs who, generally speaking, use him more than the plastic surgeon, I believe him.

Bless my mother, and all Swedish women. They are tight with money and long on wisdom. Why spend more than .99 cents when you don't have to?

I remember that others exist that are in fact, tighter than a piece of cole wedged in my husbands hand. Thus, for those that don't want to spend the .99, here are a few more nuggets of wisdom:

1. Use mom's second answer: the chin-stretch. It's ugly, so don't do it in front of children. They will turn to drugs. Take your lower jaw and stretch it as though you were Edward going in for the kill on Bella. The veins should pop out on your jawline. Mom affirms doing 20-50 of these a day, in addition to the loofa-ing has kept her from having the gobble. (I do these when no one is looking).

2. My 60ish man friend, father of 4 and a vain person himself (CEO of a media company), is a bit overweight, has hair in the wrong places (on his back instead of his head) but by golly, he cares about the gobble. One day, while he admired my jawline, I returned the compliment, fanning his ego by asking about his secret.

"Pull the neck up 50 times a day," he said. He proceeded to tell me he saw it on an informercial, and had been following the regime without fail for sixty days.

"It's working," he said, convinced. "Even my wife can tell."

He demonstrated, and it's a slight variation on the teeth-pull manuevuer of my mom,  like Jacob without fangs.

If fangs and teeth aren't your thing, and you aren't wanting to loofa for 20 years, then you have no choice but to whip out the credit card and get a face or chin lift. According to the advice from reputable surgeons, a single or double lift (e.g. slice and pull method) is the way to go. 

I did the right thing and dialed up a few friends who are in their late 50's who had the procedure. I've seen all the women (and one man who got a microderm abrasion instead), all with very different results. Turns  out, the difference seems to be more geographical than anything. By that, I mean this: (yes, 9th grade grammar works for others than Stephanie M)...

San Francisco and Seattle plastic surgeons go 'subtle' said one woman. The chin and neck was a soft stretch, not hard, the kind that makes you think the customer has gone to another yoga class instead of under the knife. Contrast this with LA or Vegas, where the bigger, bustier, tighter and whiter are the adjectives that come to mind. I'm thinking of that 92101 plastic surgeon show, with the good-looking latin surgeon Dr. Ray, who couldn't stop talking about his black belt. He never met a patient he couldn't push from attractive obscurity to freakish side-show. When you have that type of Carol Burnett treatment, the skin is wound tighter than a snare drum, leaving me wondering if the person (nea, victim) is going to snap off the bottom jaw when taking a bite of an apple.

That brings us back to the low, or no cost forms of turkey gobble treatments. Exercise and eating right, of course, but going with the loofa, chin and neck stretching exercises seem to be the limit. It's worked for mom, it's working for me. Instead of posting a shot of my jaw profile, I'll take one now and post it in five years to see how nature has treated my Edwardian/Jacob neck preening.

In the interim, I'm going to give a shout out to a new reader from Latvia. Was it the cankles that drew you in??

What do I know about that lovely country? How to spell it, actually. I need a Latvian recipe. I looked up Latvian cookbooks and the first item Google delivered was a pork recipe. I love the other white meat. So thank you, my new Latvian reader. We might have a love of bread and pork in common (we can jump the water together and take in a porkbun or two from our Chinese friends). The cheese also looks divine, but bad for the turkey gobble.