Say hi to Emily Sue...

Labels: being an aunt, nieces

Last week, upon discovering that there is a cardio kickboxing class at my gym, I chose to blow off my podiatrist's rule of "no impact" workouts and give the cardio kickboxing class a try.
And people? I was excited about this... ok, a little nervous since I haven't done anything like that since before Triniti was born and I was pretty sure I was going to get my ass kicked but I was still excited.
So Thursday I get to the gym and watch Emilee attempt to climb the hardest of the three rock walls before going to change and wait for the class to start. As I'm waiting, I am sizing up the other people waiting for the class to start and save for two chics, I was feeling pretty good about it. The cycling class that was using the room starts to funnel out of the room and we all funnel in. We are all stashing our water bottles and other various belongings around the room and stretching a little and waiting for the instructor to show up. But instead of some tall and tone beauty queen appearing at the front of the class, one of the girls who I thought we would be taking the class with wanders up to the front of the room. Now, this chic? She wasn't all buff and in shape like our other instructors. In fact, she was a rather plump short chic and I don't mean plump like twenty pounds plump, I mean like just joined the gym plump.
And I say that with love, not judgment. I mean good for her right?
So she walks up to the front of the class and starts ticking off things that she wants us to go and gather from various corners of the room. The first thing is a jump rope and I am thinking that's a little weird but ok. So I walk over to the side where the jump ropes are and grab a couple (since they are all tangled together) and start untangling them. It becomes apparent that I am holding about four orange handled jump ropes and one black handled one. And I have no idea what the difference is but as I am untangling them I notice that there are only like four black jump ropes hanging on the thingy and all the rest are orange. And again, I have no idea what the difference is but I decide to take a black one because if its the one I need then I got one of the few that we there and if not there are like four hundred orange ones and I can come back and switch mine out. But as I am walking back over to my spot in the room it occurs to me that I am one of the shortest people in the room and what if I grabbed one of the only tall people jump ropes and now all of these tall chics are going to be all pissed off at me. I wasn't allowed much time to ponder this since the little instructor chic then told us to get two sets of weights. One set of "light" weights (oxymoron? methinks so) and then a set of "heavier" weights.
This choice is left up to us. Like I am qualified to know which two sets of weights are appropriate for me. The first time I took pilates, I got one pound weights because I wasn't sure. So I get two three-pound weights and two five-pound weights and am immediately made to look like an asshole since all these other chics are getting the five pounders as their "light" weights and then like eights or tens as their "heavier" weights. Again, not much pondering time since she says that while we are over there we need to also grab a body bar. Do you know what a body bar is dear reader? Well let me tell you. It is a weighted and padded bar. It's like a weight bar with the weight built into it. So there is this bin full of bars with varying weight amounts listed on them. They start as low as eight pounds and work their way up to like thirty pounds. Now I happen to know that thirty pounds is too effing much for me and that eight pounds will probably add to my wussy-jump-rope-stealer status so I choose a nice twelve pound body bar and at this point it occurs to me that this is an awful lot of stuff for a kickboxing class to need. But wait! There's still more. We now need an aerobic step. At this point one of my other confused classmates mentions to the short instructor that this is an awful lot of stuff for a kickboxing class at which point the rest of us who are setting up our aerobic steps amongst our arsenal of muscle building equipment look up and nod in agreement and the instructor informs us that had any of us read the notice on the door we may have realized previous to now that kickboxing has been canceled for two weeks while that instructor gets her license renewed and this ladies? This is Boot Camp.
How scary does that sound? Boot Camp. Like I don't think there has ever been a Boot Camp of any kind that I thought to myself, "hey self, we should totally sign up for that!" But what do I do? I mean, she is turning the music on so if I'm going to bail, I had better hurry. I can clearly see three other chics having the same problem as me at this time. To stay or leave... I mean on the one hand I've already said I was going to take a class and granted this one isn't the one I thought it would be but shit I've already gotten the forty five things I need for it out from different sides of the room and putting it all away will take like ten minutes and I'll look like an ass. So I start glancing around just begging one of the other chics to start putting her stuff away because if someone else does, I totally will but no one else is! And now the instructor chic has put on Sexy Back all nice and loud and begun the class and the window of opportunity has left the room. So that's cool. I'll just take the class, I mean how hard can it be anyway? Right?
So to start off, she tells us to grab our jump ropes. Now I don't know about ya'll but jump roping and bicycle riding are two things I left behind after I hit puberty. And I used to be a pretty good jump roper. I was in one of those jump-rope-offs, you know where they see who can do it the longest and you get a t-shirt? Yeah. So I am thinking it will be a breeze.
I was wrong.
It is hard to jump rope on a beat to Sexy Back. I wasn't fast enough and I kept getting caught up in my jump rope. And I was right about the tall girls. The orange jump ropes were too short for them so they were abandoning them and just pretending to jump rope and let me tell you people, pretending to jump rope is way the hell easier than actual jump roping. So I joined them. And it wasn't too bad but towards the end of our first jump roping session, my foot starts to hurt a little. Not enough to make me stop, but enough to make me notice. And then she tells us to put down our jump ropes and grab our lighter weights and we do curls or something for a few minutes and then we put those down and start jogging in place. Which I never do. I am not a runner. I don't enjoy running and I am terrified of messing my knees up and add to that my broken foot and I just think it's too risky. But jogging in place isn't running, I can monitor it better. But a few seconds into the running my foot starts hurting again. And then my other foot starts hurting too which means whatever is wrong with it isn't from my injury. So I am jogging along trying to stretch it out or loosen my shoes or something to make it stop, still not knowing what the hell it is. And then we stop again and start doing these lunges with the aerobic step which is hard for me because of the way I need to position and place weight on my left foot. I have to be super careful when doing these. And that makes staying on beat to Fergie is ridiculously hard.
Now back to jumping rope. This time, the pain is pain. And I am starting to freak out a little because I want to stop. I don't know what the hell it is but it is making my feet hurt. Then, it hits me. It's cramps. My feet are cramping out. What the fuck for? Now dear reader, let me tell you, I have had my feet cramp up maybe a half a dozen times in my life and it has always happened in the middle of the night and I would wake up in excruciating pain and when it was over, I'd thank the Universe for saving me because surely that type of pain can only lead to death. And now it was happening without stopping and no amount of trying was going to make it stop and I wanted to rip my shoes off and sit on the floor and rub my feet until it stopped because it effing hurt. But no one else was stopping. And I don't think you are allowed to cry so I didn't. But as I am pretend jump roping, it's as though the world has slowed down and everything is happening in slow motion you know except for my pain which is happening in real painful time. And I am asking myself when the last time I had a banana was.
This continued for another thirty minutes while I questioned my will to live. And then mercifully stopped and as I was putting all of my stuff away and swearing I would never ever ever ever go to another class like this as long as I lived, I was also a little proud of myself for having survived it.

Labels: Being a Chic, exercise, my crazy life

I went out to dinner on Friday night with the Bachelor and a new guy, we'll call him Martial Arts Man. That's very super-hero-esque isn't it? Well it wasn't my intention to be having dinner with two absolutely random men but since some of you (-ahem- you know who you are) bailed on my, I was left no other choice. It was that or ditch them both and that's just not in my bag of tricks. So I sucked it up and with a very que sera, sera attitude, I went to dinner. Was I freaking out a little about the potential awkwardness? Well yeah but if an awkward dinner is the worst thing I have going on these days, I must be doing pretty good.
So I get to TGI Fridays and meet the Bachelor who is honestly not looking so great, I'm worries about him. We order drinks and I inform him of how my group dinner plans have somehow went awry and now it is just him and me and Martial Arts Man. He laughs and tells me to quit freaking out and then our final guest arrives.
Dinner was weird. The Bachelor and I have been friends for a long time and have no problem killing a few hours and both of us are fairly personable people so we don't usually have a hard time with new people but the conversation was just off. It was a struggle. And here's the thing, Martial Arts Man is a little weird. I hadn't really hung out with him before and just knew him through work (he is the son of a co-worker) and we'd emailed a little back and forth some and he seemed nice enough. I invited him out with us because I thought it would be a good way to get to know him a little better without implying anything.
It's this new thing I am apparently doing called: pre-dating.
I can't even date, people. I am pre-dating.
And thank goodness because had I went on actual date with this guy I would have had to tell him afterwards that I wasn't interested (despite the muscles and dimples) and that would have sucked for both of us. Now I don't have to do that, I can just continue being friendly with the guy and there isn't any weird break-up type conversation. Do people even break up after one date? I love pre-dating.

I met another guy on Sunday at a bbq who was single (recently divorced) and he seemed like he was pretty cool but as the day wore on he was just radiating desperation. Guys who are very recently divorced seem to do that. They are either desperately wanting to fix their marriages or desperately wanting to find another marriage. And when they meet someone like yours truly who is single & has her shit together you can almost see it in their eyes. Like in those old time cartoons when the pupils of their eyes turn into hearts. And not to sound all shitty but I am not into dating the desperate guy.
SnowElf and I had a talk about this last week. Well actually we talk about this kind of stuff pretty much every week. We were talking about how much our ideas about the kind of guys we want to date has changed as we've gotten older and how I kind of feel like a snob sometimes because I have these preset criteria in my head and I just don't seem very willing to budge much. And I don't mean like the dude snores or doesn't have all of his hair or drives a Chevy and so now I can't date him. I just mean that there are traits I want in another person and seeing as how I've been single now for like freakin' six years, waiting for the right guy isn't such a huge deal any more. I don't want to date so I am dating or so I am not alone. I want to date to find someone who is right and if I have look for a long time to find that person, I'm ok with that because I am ok with being single.
There you go, a little therapeutic breakthrough. How much do I owe ya'll?

Labels: Being a Chic, Dating, my crazy life, My pathetic excuse for a love life

I need help Internet.
As I mentioned here, I joined the local YMCA and have been going to the gym now for a few months and I have a question about something not covered in the walk through when you initially join…
What the hell is the proper etiquette for showering in the gym?
Are you supposed to just get all naked and prance around? I mean, the locker room at our gym is slightly separated… The bathrooms are on one side with a handful of lockers and then on the other side there is a room of all lockers with two benches and then a walkway into the shower room. The shower room has four stalls and another bench but no real dry place to get dressed.
So here is my quandary… does one take a shower and then take their clothes to the benches in the locker room to get dressed? Or do you stay by the showers? And how naked exactly do you think you should be when in the locker rooms and readily viewable to the locker room general public?
I mean, kids come in there.
And I’m not entirely comfortable with my kids seeing all of these people naked let alone other people’s kids seeing me naked.
Dig?
So let me tell you what I do when I shower there… I take my bag to the bench in the shower area. And I bring a big ol beach towel so that I can stay wrapped while getting my clothes on. Now once I am in pants and a bra, I consider that cool to head out into the general locker room area and finished getting dressed.
And I kinda thought that was what everyone did.
Until the other day.
The other day, I wasn’t even showering, I just grabbed my bag after pilates and went to sit on one of the benches to get my shoes back on and I walk in and am face to.. well, I was confronted with full frontal fifty year old nudity.
This had never happened to me before.
And I didn’t know what to do.
I mean, she was just toweling off like she was at home. Is this normal gym behavior and I just wasn’t ever made aware?
I mean, go her for being all ‘I love my body’ but I just don’t have it in me to be all naked where any number of gym members, their children or the employees could just walk in and see my junk.
Do girls even have “junk” or is that reserved for dudes?
I have so many questions today… what do you think?

Labels: Being a Chic, Being Mommy, Being Retarded, exercise, Health, my crazy life