Two quick thoughts and an exclamation

1) There is little that's more pitiful than watching a fluffy dog stagger around, post-anesthesia, with a large shaved patch on one side of her and an Elizabethan collar (one of those cones) on, catching said collar on doorways. (She's recuperating today--they cleaned her teeth and removed a cyst; hence the surgery.)

2) Jillian Michaels should stay the hell away from yoga. I did her version this morning and she took something that involves stretching and holding poses and strength and...jillianized it. Doing three sun salutations in a row at top speed "because that's the only way you melt those pounds" is not inspiring or pleasant. She also had disdain for yoga speak, preferring not to say phrases such as "bring your heart center to your knee" because it wasn't "English". I'll do the Shred with her all day because then I feel justified in thrashing around to the beat as I try to copy Tami in the corner who's doing the beginner version, sweating, and occasionally gasping obscenities at Jillian and her blazing eyes and killer abs and tattoos. Yoga, not so much.

Here's the exclamation: We have strawberries randomly growing in our yard! I have no idea how they got there; one of us must've chucked a bad one and it took root or something. It is SO COOL. And our blackberries are growing! Yay, wild berries!

The Weight of Weight

I mentioned this a little while ago, but I thought I'd get going. Sometime over the last year or so, my weight has crept up. It hasn't been anything drastic; otherwise, I would have noticed. (OBVIOUSLY) Oh, sure, I've observed that things that used to fit did not fit quite as well, but I could still get them on and thus continue the denial. I've never had to worry before. Don't despise me for writing that; I just got lucky that until my mid-2os or so, I had a great metabolism where I could eat more or less what I wanted.

Cut to over 30: No longer the case. Plus I can no longer exercise for two weeks and retransform. Ah, aging. For me, it's a combination of denial and poor habits. I don't eat badly, but I do eat too much of things. I've watched T deal with it for as long as we've been together, supporting him while silently, secretly thinking I was glad I didn't have to deal with all that. Well, I do.

The final straw came when I went to put on a pair of pants from the winter wardrobe and could not close them. I burst into silly tears, though T assured me that I wasn't being stupid or silly. He was lovely. Fortunately as well, we have many Weight-Watcher friendly cookbooks and recipes that I will now utilize in terms of portion control. Plus I have a great friend who's a personal trainer and she gave me suggestions and showed me all kinds of tummy and butt moves. She also suggested this wacky "no carbs after 1pm" idea, which I know is wise and right, but it's sooo hard to do. I didn't realize how many of our dinners, albeit Weight-Watcher friendly, have carbs in them. EVIL CARBS! So I have attempted to not eat as many carbs after 1pm, which is total crap and I need to step it up. I've gotten better about exercising and writing things down, which, I swear, is the key to stopping overeating. Seriously, if you know you have to write down everything you eat, you actually, shockingly, think about what you're eating before you simply shovel it into your mouth-hole. I'm also trying to do the whole smaller-meals-more-often thing, and with my 10:00am lunch period, that's working out quite nicely. Then I eat the rest at 2pm. I think my problem, too, is that I do wait too long and then I'm RAVENOUS and I overeat.

I haven't been 100% diligent for various reasons: I got sick. I had grades due. I wanted to sleep past 5am. Those things. And I swear, every time I start a new exercise kick/routine, I get sick. Is my body trying to tell me something? But I've done more, exercise-wise, than I have in the past, which is good.

I think it's all about control, and I'm also fortunate in that this is something I can control, if I so choose. In fact, my jeans feel a bit looser today than they have. I don't care if it's all completely in my head; it gets me motivated. I don't feel the need to get back to my college weight or anything; I just want to be healthier and to fit into my clothes because, as I've said and written before, I don't have money to buy all new clothes.

I realize you might not be super-thrilled to hear about my exercise habits, but it's just one more way I'm trying to keep myself healthy and gain control over a certain part of my life. It's a reality face-slap, and I'm willing to take the slap if it means I can get healthier than I've allowed myself to become.

Thus, when I go out to dinner tonight with Mom, I'll take care in what I order and skip the bread. Happy Friday, folks.

Just breathe

I had to go to the bank yesterday to get a cashier’s check. For some reason, at that exact time they had one guy working both the drive-thru (yes, my bank branch still uses humans and those fun pneumatic tubes) and the inside windows, one older bank employee fighting with some dying printer, and two branch heads dealing with the super-special bank-y stuff. (I’m an English teacher and that’s all I can come up with. My brain is like soup at this point in the school year.) Oh yes, and about six customers all waiting to do person-to-person transactions. Fun.

I whipped out a magazine and began to read while standing there, figuring I could either get annoyed or make the best of a situation. Meanwhile, the two men behind me stood there and muttered, complaining about the service, the wait, the inefficiency of the staff…. One even quipped to the other, “You know, I saw a sign that said, ‘We hire the handicapped’….” Oh, ha ha. I almost turned around but decided to keep mum. As the branch manager came over to see if she could speed things along, apologizing about eight times, the men responded a bit belligerently. However, as they waited, they began to talk, realizing they worked in similar fields (painting and contracting) and even exchanging business information. They discovered they knew some of the same people and had worked on similar projects. I of course pulled a Pollyanna, turned around and said, “Now, see? If we hadn’t had to wait, you two never would have had this conversation.” They laughed and the one guy said, “I knew you were going to say something like that. You probably work here!”, but they were kidding around at that point.

Driving home from another bank yesterday (we refinanced our house!), I got caught in classic 5:30 traffic. I have no A-C in my car. So I opened the window, cranked the radio, and belted out “Somebody to Love” by Queen because hey, who can hear me? Plus T was in front of me in his car, so we got on our phones (hands-free, don't worry) and decided where to go to dinner and just chatted.

Then, at dinner, I overheard the waitress apologizing to three elderly customers for messing up an order: She’d brought something out at the wrong time that they'd wanted sooner. The woman told her not to worry about it; she’d been a waitress herself and it was no bother in any way. She laughed the whole thing off, made the waitress feel better (who, admittedly, seemed a little ditzy), and they ate the rest of their meal.

In situations such as those, we have a lot of decisions to make. We can get steamed, complain, rant, demand to see a manager, etc., or we can make the best of it. Granted, sometimes we have the right to be annoyed, but so many of those sorts of situations are out of the hands of those dealing with it. One famous story in DH’s family involves some jerk airline passenger screaming at the flight attendant because of a delayed flight until my FIL basically told him, as only he can, to sit down and zip it and leave her alone. He got a free first-class ticket for doing that. I think we’re so used to instant gratification and we’re all in such a hurry that we don’t stop to consider anyone else’s situation. Again, customer service in some cases has taken a serious downturn, but in general, I’ve found that it all turns out better if we all calm down and take a breath.

I’m not always patient. Not at all. I have definitely lost my cool in these sorts of situations. I have various reasons to gasp and hold my breath this week, not just because of allergies, so in a way that’s reminding me even more to close my eyes for a second , inhale, and exhale. So take a breath, folks. I’m going to try to do the same.

Oh, and if you want to see a rather biting clip that has to do with all of this, click here and go to 4:56. It's only about 20 seconds and it may give you a smile.

Checking in, myself

I'm taking a leaf out of Scarlet Lily's book and just letting you know I'm still out here. This time of year is absolute insanity with exams coming up, everyone frantically scrambling to get everything done, etc., etc. I promise, promise, promise that if springtime frost has not killed my rapidly growing vegetable garden, I'll post pictures and all that good stuff. I've essentially become a crew widow (I mean nothing against you, sweetie--I know how hard you work) because DH is coaching and acting as an excellent role model to a local school's rowing team. Having been on a team as a member and coach myself, I know how much commitment it takes. Plus his girls did well enough to make it to Nationals in NJ, so that's a HUGE deal and I am very proud because I know my husband helped make that happen. They've got a regatta in Canada this weekend, so I'll try to go and cheer them on. If I remember correctly, there's enough down time that I can probably get a lot of work done between races....

This spring also marks Operation Personal Bootcamp, because I looked down the other day and thought, When did I get that gut? Why won't it go away when I stand up? Oh yeah, I'm out of my twenties and need to more actively work to keep my body from becoming a gelatinous mass of cellulite, broken dreams, and lost/lamented super-fast metabolism. Sigh. C and M, remember how the family called me "Garbage Gut"? Ah, those halcyon days have long since passed.... So I rode my bike to the supermarket yesterday. Yikes. At least I got my workout in--my goal now is to not become winded on either end of the trek. OK, it's not really a trek; t's only a few miles away. But it's good to have a goal, right?

All right....

1) Fit into various summer clothes that have become mysteriously tight
2) Ride with speed and cheer to grocery store while being able to sing entire score of The Sound of Music and ride home while balancing groceries in my little front basket
3) Resist lure of America's Next Top Model and Law and Order: Criminal Intent marathons.

I consider those reasonable and attainable, at least by the end of the summer.

But I can have pizza, yes?

This concerns me

I read an article yesterday in the NYT about Rihanna going back to Chris Brown and how a large number of teens out there think it's either her fault ("She must have provoked him") or that Brown shouldn't get in trouble because she took him back. The article also mentioned that a lot of Chris Brown fans can't get over the idea that the press is simply villfying him, and anyone who's done videos with Elmo could not do something like that. These adolsecents "see in absolutes", so it's either right or wrong. Plus the hip-hop culture sends messages that often have tones of misogeny and aggressive male behavior (and, I think, women as objects a lot of the time)--as the article reads, it's not to blame, but it doesn't help.

I get very frustrated when I hear of teens accepting violence as something that simply happens, something they have to accept, or something that they will do to another person just because "that's the way it is". I don't think we all should go running hand-in-hand through the flowers, but stories like this slay me. I realize--not firsthand, mercifully--that getting out of an abusive relationship is not easy, even when it's the obvious choice to the outsider. How do adolescents gain good ideas about how to treat each other with the role models they choose?

I didn't mean to sound down, but as the post says, this concerns me. A lot. I'd love to know your thoughts.

I think I can live by this alone

T and I made onion rye bread. You saute the onions first, then roll them up in the dough and cook it, so they're all gooshy and soft. These carbs, I won't give up. It tastes SO GOOOOOOD....


Tonight I have a concert I'm singing in, with two pieces all about the awfulness of war, as it is a Concert for Peace. Some of the words are biblical and others come from Walt Whitman. The Whitman stuff's quite haunting and often discordant, but it somehow works. I meant to take a shower beforehand, but since a strangely high number of my choirmates have bad reactions to scented ANYTHING (hand lotion, shampoo, perfume, etc.), I am going to go slightly dirty. I don't want to cause anyone's attacks. I write that a bit facetiously--I do feel terrible that they have such bad reactions, but my being unshowered is admittedly a little tongue-in-cheek.

I'm off to eat more bread. I will brush my teeth--toothpaste doesn't bother any of them and singing with onion breath is just mean and wrong.

By the way, does everyone else love it that it's light out so late?

Husband=Good. Students=Bad.

Well, that's not entirely true, but it worked as a heading. I've had yet another rotten cold for the past three days: a little sniffly, throat like a sandpaper-covered golf ball, and a pathetic joke of a voice. Chugging tea has helped to a tiny extent.

Yesterday with my pitiful voice I attempted to make it clear to my first period class that I could not carry the discussion. Now, when you're a teenager and have to sit in class at 7:25am (I KNOW), you may not act chipper and awake. But I asked them to please TRY. They don't hate me; they could've done it. But noooooo. Crickets chirping, pins dropping, me desperately trying to get something going. I gave them questions like "Are all people capable of murder?"! Do you not have an opinion of that? If I call on you, could you please not say, "Well, I pretty much agree with what X just said, so....[trail off into nothingness]"? Gave up at 10:30 and went home sick. Sleep is marvelous. I also learned to love Top Chef--whoops. Like I need to watch more TV. I did sleep, honey! I did, I swear! (T gets very sweetly militant about me sleeping when I'm sick so I can actually get better.)

So last night DH brought me soup in a bread bowl--soooo soothing; Bee M.D. throat drops, which ROCK; and a humidifier. You cannot believe how much difference that little, magical contraption makes in a dry, heated house. Not that I'm complaining about warmth, mind you. It's been close to zero the past few nights and if the wind chill gets below -20 (they have predicted it), we won't have school again. But I digress. I love the humidifier. Go get one right now. It will change your life.

Today I'm a bit better, went to work, watched videos in two classes legitmately, and made it through. Now I'm going to douse myself with TheraFlu, my other good, drowsiness-inducing friend, and go to bed again at 8:30. Stay well, kids.

A Brilliant Form of Bribery

Went to the dentist today for the first time in...too long. Over a year. I know. I'm bad. So they took the x-rays, informed me why I actually need to floss and proved it by showing me the cavity that's just beginning to form using their magical zoom-in x-ray photos of my teeth (SO COOL. TT, now I know why B gets so excited about his work). It was the first time I could see for myself what the dentist meant.

But the way coolest part? The hygienist had me watch a movie while she cleaned my teeth! Seriously, while she poked and prodded, I watched Enchanted, which I have never seen and now plan to rent because I found it, frankly, enchanting. The screen's right there and you either see your x-rays or watch a movie--whatever they need to do at that moment, obviously. It's not as though I would choose to stare at tooth roots instead of watching Amy Adams run around and sing. What a great way to calm children and the occasional nervous adult! Seriously, I will never miss my six-month check-up again. Now if only I had better dental insurance....Sigh. There's the catch, but it might be worth it to sit in the chair and chill to a DVD for an hour.

Oh, and go see The Curious Story of Benjamin Button. Amazing.

Strange but True

Apparently, a doctor in Hawaii found that doing chest compressions for CPR to the beat of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" allows for the right rhythm and the proper number of beats per minute. I'm not kidding. Check out the brief article.

How bizarrely appropriate. I love it.

The skin you're in

Today became one of those days where I wish I'd stayed in bed or worked at another job, preferably one with mature adults: The kids clearly hadn't read, we had little to no discussion even though they have a quiz (well, a "quest"--part quiz, part test) tomorrow, and I wanted to tell them that as much as they had mentally checked out, their teachers had similar feelings but refused to give into them. Sigh. So, at least I have something positive to contribute to all of you that makes the day worthwhile:


Just got this from Real Simple a few days ago online: The Skin Cancer Foundation and Aveeno are combining to give free skin cancer screenings around the country this spring and summer. As someone with skin just this side of ghost white, I take my sunscreen and skin cancer very seriously. Click here to find a location near you, as well as the date. Anyone in my area, there are two different places close to us that we can go to, which is a nice change from tours like this only getting as close as NYC and maybe Cleveland. Use SPF 30, people! Don't go tanning! Embrace your freckles and pale selves (or use fake tanner, like I do....)!

Famous pale people:

- Nicole Kidman (particularly in Moulin Rouge)
- The Pillsbury Dough Boy
- Kirsten Dunst (sans the fashion sense)
- Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City)
- Casper
- Rose McGowan (of Charmed fame)
- Kelly Taylor in early episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210
- Julianne Moore
- Conan O'Brian
- Frosty the Snowman
- Early seasons of Friends Courtney Cox

Any others I can't think of?