Effin' Dork

So, I'm reading The Bloggess which if you don't read it, you should.  And she, The Bloggess herself, is talking about the old song "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight".  

She thinks the lyrics are “I’m not talking ’bout the weather. And I don’t want to change your mind.  But there’s a warm wind blowing the stars around.  And I’d really love to see you tonight.”

Her husband, Victor, corrects her and gives her the correct lyrics...“I’m not talking ’bout moving in.  And I don’t want to change your life.”  

The worst part of reading this though is for years I've been singing "I'm not talking about millennium, and I don't want to change your mind."  

Is there ever a going to be a song that I don't, years later, find out I've been singing wrong?  I'm such a fucking dork I can't believe it.

It's the stoopidist thing....

The IMAX Adventure

About a week or so ago, GSD (The Good Step Daughter) asked if I'd come up to her place and spend the night so she and her husband could go to a Zack Brown concert.  Being the fabulously wonderful step mother that I am, I said sure.  Okay, I'm not always wonderful...but I mean to be...it just doesn't always work out that way.

GSD's house is about a hundred miles from me so it takes a little while to drive.  I take the truck because it has satellite radio.  Because satellite radio has good reception and it has a bunch of oldies stations and those are the only songs I know the lyrics to.  At least in my mind I know the lyrics.  As it turns out, the "real" lyrics are way different from what I'm actually singing. It was only recently I found out that Van Halen didn't sing Cannon Ball...it's Panama.  All these years I've been singing Cannon Ball.  Every time you find out something like that you wonder how many times you sang it wrong in front of someone else.  Fortunately for me, unless I'm alone in my car, I pretty much sing under my breath when anyone else is around.  Unlike my friend, Smelly, who at any given moment will burst into song...loudly...and out of tune...and she doesn't care.  Sadly, I can only admire that kind of self confidence knowing full well that I'll never in a million years be able to do anything like that.

It just occurred to me that maybe Smelly doesn't really know how she sounds.  Do you think she thinks she sounds good?  Or at least not terrible?  What if she's completely tone deaf and thinks she's singing in tune? I hope that's not the case.  And if it is, I hope she never in a million years reads this and discovers the truth.  I'd really miss those random bursts of song...they're really entertaining.

The drive is pretty uneventful.  Otis Redding keeps me company along with Dusty Springfield and Smokey Robinson.  About half way there I switch to classic rock and sing along with the likes of Led Zepplin, The Doors, Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Aerosmith.  I'm rockin' out...

Oddly, the booberdoobers are at a minimum and I only experience a brief moment of road rage when a little SUV pulling a travel trailer clogs up a two lane section of road.  The fucker refuses to use the turn outs so the hundred  cars piled up behind him can go the speed limit and not TWENTY MILES BELOW like he's forcing us to do.  And yes, I'm exaggerating...there weren't a hundred cars backed up...but it seemed like it.  I briefly wonder if he can see me in his rear view mirror and read my lips.  Nah, I decide, he probably just thinks I'm singing along with the radio. Unless of course, he can see my face has gone beet red with rage and there really is smoke coming out of my ears.  After screaming at him and calling him every horrible name I can think of he finally pulls over.  "About time mother fucker" I shout...to myself... as I waive politely when I drive by. I'm such a fucking hypocrite.  Why can't I just flip him off like I really want to do?  At this point in my life, I'm probably never going to grow a set of balls.

After fuckhead lets us by, the drive's pretty much smooth sailin'.

When I finally get there, GSD & her husband are already gone and the three boys are home alone. You'd think that three boys being home alone would be chaotic, wouldn't you?  Not with these three.  Talk about rule followin' little tykes. These guys go out of their way to follow "the rules".  You can't even get them to do anything wrong.  Believe me, I've tried.  Plus, they're polite.

It's kinda refreshing and frustrating at the same time.  I don't know how they did it. GSD was never a big "rule follower" when she was younger but maybe her husband was.  That must be where they get it.  They should write a book about how to raise polite, well behaved children.  It would probably be a waste of time though because the parents with bratty fuckin' rugrats wouldn't take the time to read it. Why?  Because, parents with bratty children never recognize said bratty-ness in their kids.  That's the problem.  They think their kids are fabulous little specimens of humanity and make every excuse imaginable for misbehavior.  Those parents should have their asses kicked...regularly...preferably by someone with more balls than me of course.

C, the oldest boy, actually asked me if I wanted him to get my bag out of the car.  I almost fainted.

M, the middle child, is now taller than I am.  T, the baby, showed me his two silver teeth, acquired on a recent trip to the dentist.  He's now on a sugar restricted diet...THAT HE FOLLOWS WILLINGLY...WTF?

Eventually, we decide to go see a movie. Transformers 4...at the IMAX.  I didn't know what an IMAX was.  A luxury IMAX no less.

After C figures out how to lock the house door, which he apparently has never had to do before, and after I put said key safely on my key rings so we can actually get back into the house later, we all load into the truck and I find that there's not room enough to turn around. So now I have to back down their long drive way. Yikes! It's narrow and winding and really, really steep. I feel foolishly proud that I managed without incident.  A little bump here and there, but the driveway is bumpy...we made it...alive and uninjured...and that's all that really matters, isn't it? And, more importantly, no dings on the truck for The Husband to bitch about. Although if we're counting dings on vehicles, he's put way more in them than I have.

Since C is the oldest, and recently got his learners permit to drive, he's designated as navigator. Fortunately, I had the foresight to ask him to print a Google map with directions to the theater.  As it turns out, he's never really paid attention to directions anywhere in his travels with his parents. Hopefully his attention to direction improves when he starts driving by himself.  Otherwise he's gonna spend a lot of time getting lost.

After an incident free trip, we get to the theater...thanks to Google.  When we go to buy our tickets, only the front row seats were left.  I didn't think much of it at the time. Then on to the snack bar. This is where I really start wondering if these are real kids or some kind of new alien species.  I could tell C & M were worried that I was going to have to spend too much money.  They actually suggested SHARING bags of popcorn.  Can you believe that?  When I said everyone should have their own bag, M said maybe we should get the SMALL bags.  Where did these kids come from?  I want to turn them around and see if they have those things in the back of their necks like the aliens from the old Invaders TV series.  We compromise on medium bags...along with bottled water insisted on by the little rule followers, and diet Coke for me.  As it turns out, M was right. The medium bags were giant and none of us finished our popcorn.  (A note for the frugally inclined...snack bar munchies cost way, way more than the movie tickets.)

On to the darkened theater... where I found out why the front row had the only seats available.  You end up looking straight up at a ginormous curved IMAX screen. You can't even really focus on the whole screen, just the middle section.  The curved sides end up looking totally fucking distorted.  I mean, Mark Wahlberg isn't hard on they eyes, but I didn't really expect to be staring up at his giant nose holes for the entire show.

The seats were comfortable though...cushy recliners with side tables for drinks.  It took a little while to figure out the actual reclining process when T, who was sitting next to me, accidentally pushed a button and his chair moved.  We both looked at each other with that raised eyebrow, big eyed, "O" shaped mouth surprised look.  Kinda like those adult store blow up dolls, only human.  I did find out, albeit over halfway through the movie, that if you go fully reclined, it's easier to look at the screen straight up.  Then you don't get a crick in you neck.  Although if you're old and inclined to doze off, reclining may not be your best option.  Not that I dozed.  I started to a couple of times but all the fucking explosions in the movie kept waking me up.  Note to self...never sit in the front row of an IMAX theater if you're over the age of 16.  Seriously... if you ever find yourself contemplating this...walk away.

After the movie, we stopped at Subway where, by their choice, the boys SHARED SODAS.  OMFG! Then off to Walmart for Hershey's syrup because the ice cream flavors they had at home were Vanilla and Cookie Dough.  I don't like Cookie Dough, and the only way to eat Vanilla is with Hershey's, and being the healthy life style family they are, unlike me, they don't have bottles of Hershey Syrup lining the shelves in their refrigerator.  No, their refrigerator if filled with things like fresh fruit, organic vegetables, you know, weird stuff.  No Cheese Wiz in that Frigidaire, no sir.  I did manage to convince the rule followers that yes, butterscotch syrup, would be okay, and wouldn't put me in the poor house if they wanted to try it. Which they did.  I was secretly overjoyed by this.  They really are little human boys!

When we left Walmart, M, the middle rule follower who happens to be a wee bit of a worry wort, carefully monitored my driving speed from the back seat... pointing out that the speed limit was 50 and I was going too fast.  Silence little rule follower in the back seat (I said to myself)...to him I said..."It doesn't get down to 50 until further up the road."  (Just for the record, I really do try to drive the speed limit when I have kids in the car or when I'm hauling horses...you know...the whole precious cargo shit...I can't believe I even thought that let alone actually wrote it out...gag me with a spoon.)

When we got back home M carefully inspected my key ring to see if their house key was still on it.  I think he was really afraid I was going to steal their house key. Chill out child.  What would I do? Make off with all their organic fruits and veggies when they were gone? Yeah, right.

Out came the ice cream as soon as we got home by their choice, not mine, convincing me a little more that yes, these were really human children.  They all ate the ice cream with butterscotch syrup...and liked it.  I think if I hadn't been there, they might have eaten more.

I make fun of GSD's kids and how they follow rules, and call them aliens, and act like they're not "normal" kids.  But really, they're not.  Most kids these days don't have parents who give a shit and insist that they follow rules.  Insist that they eat stuff that's good for them instead of junk food (like me) all the time.  Insist that they be polite and respectful instead of being obnoxious little shitheads.

It takes a lot of time and effort to raise kids to be productive members of society these days.  My hat's off to GSD & her hubby.  Well, it would be if I were ever to wear hats...which I don't...but if I did I'd take it off to them.  Because even though I might make fun of them, they're doing a bang up job of parenting.  Their kids are definitely not the "norm"...but they should be...it's the stoopidist thing.

P.S.  The vanilla ice cream they had wasn't really ice cream...it was frozen yogurt. I have to admit, it wasn't bad...who knew????  But then if there's Hersheys on top, how could anything be bad?

Aging...Not So Gracefully

Remember when you were little and you mom would tell you to wait thirty minutes after eating before going swimming?  Otherwise you'd get stomach cramps and drown?  Did anybody really wait thirty minutes?  I don't think so.  Unless you had a mom with a stopwatch and some kind of weapon, i.e., belt, yardstick, wooden spoon, hair brush, or the dreaded "wire hanger"...the latter which has since become synonymous with Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest..."NO. WIRE. HANGERRRRRRS!!!." you never really paid attention.  (I'm really glad Joan wasn't my mom.)

I never got a cramp.  In fact, I never knew of anyone who did, did you?  My eyes never stayed permanently crossed either.  AND my face never froze with my tongue stuck out at my bratty little brother.  Saying shit like that made kids not believe other stuff parents said that was true.  Really, how many times have you burnt the roof of your mouth or your tongue because you didn't believe "don't eat that, it's too hot"?  If they hadn't cried wolf with the other shit we might have believed them.

But the cramp thing...I never got a cramp when I was a kid.  I didn't start getting cramps in my feet until I became an adult.  It may have had something to do with walking around in platform sandals or some other such nonsense but whatever the reason, that's where I'm saying they started.

I get different kinds of cramps in my feet.  Sometimes they're in the top part between my second toe and my little toe.  They make my foot sort of flatten out in the toe area and my toes actually spread apart.  Very unnatural looking.

Cramps in the arch of my foot have the opposite effect on my toes.  They all try to move to center stage at the same time, some curling up, some curling down.  Oddly enough, my big toe is never involved in this mad dash to the middle.  Ms. Big Toe remains calm and secure in her place as the largest toe, causing me no pain, while the others vie for position as second toe...with little Miss Second Toe pushing back against the others.  Fortunately for me, the toe battle usually lasts less than a minute before the losers give up and return to their delegated positions.  But once they start fighting, they end up having to try again, and again, and again.  I think the fight is over and can walk like a normal human being again...and then they start fighting.  Fuckers.

The cramps I get in the ball of my foot are like being pierced with a very large needle with little electrical shockey feelings pulsing from the center.  These, while extremely painful and rendering me a unipod, don't force my toes into unnatural positions.  I am, however, rendered immobile for the duration.

I get so mad when I get a cramp in my foot.  Other than swearing profusely, I have no ritual or remedy for dealing with foot cramps.  I guess the swearing is kind of a ritual but it does nothing to remedy the cramp.  I drop F bombs, on myself, which only fuels my rage.

I've tried rubbing them out.  No go.  I found I'm Queen of the Wimps when it comes to inflicting further pain on myself.  It hurts so fucking bad trying to force a cramped foot back into its normal pose.  I've tried putting my foot on top of a tennis ball and rolling over it with my foot when I get arch cramps.  Still no go.  I found out the hard way not to do this when the cramp is in the ball of my foot because it feels like I'm shoving the needle directly into the nerve endingings. Triple F bombs filled the air when I tried this.

Leg cramps, while still painful, are usually a little easier for me to deal with.  At least I can walk around while I wait for them to relax.  Okay, maybe not "walk"...more of a hop/hobble combo.  A hopple.  Sort of like Grand Pappy Amos on the Real McCoys...who always had a hitch in his git along.

So the other night I'm sleeping all nice and cozy when for no fucking reason, the muscle alongside my left shin bone starting cramping.  Really bad.  I flung  myself out of bed and started hoppling around, and get this...I actually heard myself moaning in pain.  WTF???  I was actually hoppling around moaning out loud...to myself.   Do I do this all the time and never noticed before?  Do I do it in front of other people?  How fucking embarrassing is that?  

I know I grunt alot...especially getting out of the car or off the couch.  Unlike old man noises like farts...for which the nearest dog or cat gets blamed, I call them old woman noises because I don't remember making them when I was younger. Although it could be that since my memory is going I just don't remember making them when I was younger.  Now I wonder how many other things I'm blaming on my advanced age that have been a part of me all along but I just don't remember?

What's up with the whole moaning thing anyway.  You read all the time about people moaning in agony.  Why, when we have the ability to form words, do we emit incoherent soundage?  I can see why a baby would do it or a mute, but a person with basic language skills should be able to say "ow", or "ouch", or "fuck that hurts".  Don't you think?  It probably comes from some reptilian part of our brain...the part that gets blamed for all inexplicable behavior.

Rambling on and on, and getting sidetracked is another thing I'm blaming on advanced age...

So in the midst of my hoppling and moaning, I bend over and for some reason notice that the second toe on my right foot has a wrinkle in it.  Really?  Wrinkled toes too?  I thought maybe it was a piece of lint and tried to brush it off, but it stayed.

In order to confirm this latest bodily insult, I needed visual verification.  Since I can't see shit close up without them, I donned the nearest pair of reading glasses. While I'm pleased to announce it wasn't a wrinkle I'm totally mortified to see that it's a long hair growing out of my toe.  WTF?????

I've never had hair growing there before.  How did it get there?  How long has it been there?  I've been wearing sandals since it got hot and never noticed it.  How many other people noticed it but were too polite to tell me?   Is it a little lost soul who's migrated south for the winter?  Like the migratory chin hairs who ventured south and liked it so much they decided to stay?  Is my future destined to be finding migratory pubes where they aren't supposed to be too?

Hoppling to the bathroom to get tweezers I make quick work of the little migratory menace.  The sad truth is in addition to all the other aging insults I'm forced to endure, I've become a fucking hairy footed Hobbit...it's the stoopidist thing.

Pre Game Show...For The Husband!!!!!

Hooray, it's not me this time.  I know it's really wrong, but I can't help chuckling (to myself of course) when I think about what's in store for the man of my dreams. I even feel a little guilty for thinking it's funny since it's something nobody wants to do.  I think I'm just so happy that it's not me.  So it's actually more of a sympathy laugh.   I mean it not like he doesn't know...this isn't his first Game Day prep.

Yes, during The Husband's last yearly physical, his good ol' Doc referred him to the Happy Butt Doctor for a colonoscopy.  Don't you think that might be a good office name for the anally inclined physicians in this field?  It would show a sense of humor about the hole ordeal...notice the little play on words...hole instead of whole?  Get it?  Sometimes I just crack myself up...I'm so mature.

He got the referral papers in the mail a few days ago and sent them in.  I was a little puzzled because they had him scheduled to see a guy with D.O. after his name instead of M.D.  Don't you think that's kinda weird?  I always thought DO stood for an Osteopath and I thought they were just a Chiropractor with an M.D.   Seems kinda odd to me that an Osteopath would be performing butt doctor duties, doesn't it?  I told The Husband to find out about this little oddity when he went in for his office visit.  It probably stands for Doctor's Orderly. Some poor schmo workin' for minimum wage doing the real Dr.'s dirty work.

When The Husband came home from the office "consultation"(which is really just an anal violation pep talk and some way the medical system has come up with to get yet another fee) I forgot to ask about the DO thing.  I didn't get the anal violation pep talk before my Game Day and when I stopped to think about it I have to say I'm not sorry about that.  I'd feel really weird talking to some strange man and listening to him explain how he planned to violate me anally.  Better not to know the stranger behind that mask.

So last night The Husband hands me his "instructions for pending doom".  Starting in the morning, no solid food and only clear liquids.  This is a problem because The Husband likes his lunch.  He's afraid he might waste away going one whole day without lunch.  I'm pretty sure he has enough girthage to last him a day or two but I wisely keep this thought to myself.  Anyway, I asked him about the DO thing.

Me: " So did you find out if the guy's an Osteopath?"

The Husband:  "He's a doctor.  Some kind of Colo-Rectal surgeon."

Me:  (Noticing The Husband is studiously avoiding eye contact...) "You didn't ask, did you?"

The Husband:  "No, I forgot...but I saw some kind of sign on the wall."

Story of my fuckin' life...

This kinda surprises me because most old heterosexual dudes are pretty picky about anyone without proper credentials messin' with their hiney.  They want to know it's really a necessary medical procedure they're signin' up for and not some fun filled extra credit class for med students.

Not so with Crazy D, the hair guy...who may be just a teensie weenie bit homophobic.  He told me when he had his colonoscopy, he was laying on the table, still awake, and one of the male personnel took a pre-moistened towelette and wiped his ass.  Crazy D was totally horrified by this.  He couldn't believe the guy did this while he was still awake.  Honestly, I can't believe that I was actually talking about colonoscopies with my hair guy.  And we were hysterical about it. It's such an old person thing...talking about the latest thing going wrong with your old decrepit bodies.

Back to the Pre Game Day itinerary...at 2:00 pm, he starts drinking his Prompt a Poop juice, which being the dutiful wife I am, I picked up at the pharmacy.

I have a little gripe about that.  When I picked up my Prompt a Poop Juice, it didn't come carefully concealed in a paper bag.  Noooo, they handed me the plastic jug containing what I'm fairly certain is powdered excrement out in the open so everyone who saw me knew I was about to be anally violated and was willingly preparing for said violation.  The Husband's bottle of Prompt a Poop came in a paper bag so nobody knew what I was carrying out of the store.  Is this a new procedure?  Or did somebody fall down on the job and forget to put mine in a plain brown wrapper???

Just to be clear...I'm only guessing that the jug contains powdered excrement simply because when hydrated as per the directions it tastes like shit...or what I'd imagine shit to taste like if I ever had the inclination to eat shit...to the best of my knowledge, I've never actually tasted shit...at least not intentionally.

Even before I knew there'd be a bag covering the jug, I made sure the clerk knew it wasn't for me when I stepped up to the pharmacy counter..."I'm here to pick up a prescription for MY HUSBAND"...she only smiled at me.  I may have shouted the "for my husband" part a little bit.  She probably thought I was lying.

The night before he was supposed to drink his excrement cocktail, The Husband was pretty sure he'd be able to work the whole day.  When he told me this, I looked at him like he'd suddenly grown a second head...

Me:  "Are you fucking kidding me????"

The Husband:  "No, why not?"

Me: "You're gonna go to work and shit your brains out intentionally?  How gross is that?"

I'm still not sure if he was serious or not...he likes to say things he knows I'll get all jacked up about. It works...I can't believe I still fall for it almost every time.

He also thought he was going to be able to go to work after his "procedure".

Me:  "You can't do that.  Read your instructions for pending doom.  They say you have to have a ride when you show up or they won't do it.  So you'd waste a whole day shitting your brains out for nothing.  Then you'd have to do it all over again."

The Husband: " I have a plan.  I'll park my car at Pep Boys and take a taxi to the hospital.  When I get done, I'll take a taxi back to my car and go to work."

Me:  "No."

The Husband:  "Why not?  They won't know."

Me:  "No."

He starts laughing at me being so adamant and keeps egging me on about it.  He loses...this time. Truth be told, I don't think he was serious...just another example of The Husband yanking my chain.

He couldn't finish the whole jug of Prompt a Poop but apparently he got enough down to do the job.

The next morning bright and early we went to the hospital.  I had visions of going in until he was checked in and then leaving to go shopping.  The hospital staff were so efficient though that I didn't even have time to go to WalMart.  They said I could go back with him while they prepped him for his procedure and it seemed kinda wrong to put a trip to WalMart before giving moral support to the man of my dreams preparing for anal violation.  Once they had him prepped and ready to go they wheeled him away and I barely had time to walk to the car to get my Kindle and read a couple chapters of Adam Carolla's new book before they were calling me into the recovery room.

It's a funny book and I thought I'd keep reading while I waited for the man of my dreams to awaken from his drug induced Twilight Sleep.  Alas, my plans were foiled by Chatty Cathy, the nurse assigned to him while he was in recovery...not the doll from the late fifties/early sixties.  Remember her?  And Tiny Tears?  And Betsy Wetsy?  And Patty Play Pal?  My mom always wanted me to play with dolls and I never really liked them...I was such a disappointment.

Chatty Cathy told me about her husband, her late parents, her husband living in Alaska, some of her health issues, some of her husbands health issues, the difference between different type of fiber supplements, and on, and on, and on. Then she hands me a little vial of water.

Me:  "What's this?"

Chatty Cathy:  "They're your husband's polyps."

Me:  "Are you giving them to me?????"

Chatty Cathy:  "Oh no.  They have to go to the lab but I thought you might want to see them."

I'm pretty sure I had a shocked look on my face and couldn't come up with a witty retort.  So I looked at them.  The polyps were barely visible in the water vial.  I don't know what I expected...something really gross I guess...but they were bright orange and as small as a poppy seed.  Who'd a thunk it?

Then she started telling me about The Husband's post anal violation instructions, and what to expect.  It's all written on the papers they give you but maybe she thought I couldn't read or something.  So she read them all aloud to me...like I was five.

All I really wanted was for her to shut the fuck up so I could read my book...but what do I do?  I smiled, and nodded, and acted interested in what she was saying. Adam Carolla was on the chair waiting to make me laugh and I was forced to ignore him and smile, nod, and act interested in someone who was actually boring the hell out of me.  You'd think at my age I'd be able to somehow politely but firmly extract myself from situations like this, wouldn't you?  But noooooooo, I don't want to seem rude or be impolite.

By this time, The Husband was starting to open his eyes and spout gibberish.  So I figure I can focus my attention on him and ignore Chatty Cathy.  I start to talk to him.

Me:  "They found two polyps."

The Husband:  "They did?"

Chatty Cathy AKA Buttinski:  "Oh don't expect him to remember anything you're saying. The drugs they use are amnesiacs.  They make it so they don't remember anything."  

Me:  "Oh."

Me In My Head:  "I know what amnesiac means fuckhead..so just shut the fuck up and go away so I can get back to Adam."

Sometimes I really want the "Me In My Head" to speak for the real "Me"...it's the stoopidist thing.

Zoom Bye Aaaaaye Mother Fuckers!!!

There are those who are rhythm-less and then there are the most rhythm-less of the rhythm-less.  When we signed up for Zumba classes I sadly discovered my friends and I belong to the latter group. This is no shit...we suck...big time.

We take up the back row, my Far Side Friends and I.  The Far Sidians...me, Scari, O.F., and Yvettte.  And what a graceless lot we are.  All trying in vain to follow the instructor as she Zumba's her way through the routines.

Who knew the most flexible things on our bodies would be our necks which, contrary to all laws of nature, rotate in true Exorcist fashion so that no matter which way our bodies are going our heads are facing the instructor...to see if we're doing it right...which, more often than not...we aren't.  We may not have mottled green skin and we aren't projectile vomiting pea soup...yet, but I think Linda Blair would be totally impressed at our swiveling neck moves.  For a while I thought I was the only one doing this but when I looked around, all my Far Side friends were doing it too!  I took a ridiculous amount of comfort in that fact.  Still, the whole time I'm secretly praying there aren't hidden video cameras somewhere recording potential YouTube clips of us in all our graceless splendor.

There's a teenage girl who's the daughter of one of the Zoom Bye Aye'ers who sometimes stands against the wall behind us.  I think she's using her phone to take videos of us so she and her friends have something to laugh at.  Do I sound paranoid?????

When we started, our instructor was K, who looks like Frances Fisher.

K is very enthusiastic.  She's trying to motivate us.  I like her because even she screws up sometimes. She gets all big eyed and laughs.  At the end of each class, she gives us a big toothy grin, claps her hands and says "good job" like we we're a bunch of toddlers who'd just put our toys in the toy box for the first time.  I want to turn to Scari and clap my hands and say "good job" in a mocking sort of voice, but I'm afraid K would see me.

The time before last when we showed up, there was a substitute instructor, Andi.
She's much younger than K and is built kinda like a linebacker for the 49'ers.

"Well Zumba doesn't seem to be workin' too well for her" said the always, if by always you mean never, subtle Scari...after which opposite of little Andi kicked our asses. Who knew a chubby white girl could move like that??

When we went to our first class, K the instructor was at the front, facing us.  So I figured when she moved her right foot, we would move our right feet. Au contraire...when she moved her right foot, the whole rest of the class, except me, moved their left foot.  The exact opposite of what the teacher was doing.  It seemed so wrong.  But by doing it backwards, we move in the same direction as the teacher.  You have no idea how hard it is for me to wrap my head around this.

This isn't the only problem I have.  And thankfully, again, I'm not alone here.  See, you're suppose to move your arms at the same time your feet are moving.  The whole point being a nice choreographed routine.  Hah!  If I try to move my arms the way they're supposed to go, my feet never seem to do the right thing...and if I try to do the feet right, the arms move wrong.  I've always thought I was able to multi task but apparently I lose this ability where any type of rhythmic dance movements are involved.  I blame my mother for this...and pretty much every other fault I have.  But this one seems totally real.  She was kicked off the drill team because she couldn't march in time.

Question:  How is it possible for one human being to be so physically inept? Answer:  Physical ineptitude is an inherited trait. I am living proof.

Since we, the Far Sidians, have ensconced ourselves in the back row, it stands to reason that there would be rows in front of us...between us and the instructor.  This presents yet another problem for me in that some of the Zoom Bye Aye'ers are not what would typically be referred to as "thin mints".  Some are able, through sheer body mass, to completely block any view of our instructor.  Not a problem if you know what the routines are, but if you're like me and the other Far Sidians, trying to learn, this creates something of a problem.  The one blocking my view is new too and doesn't know the routines.  She's fumbling and bumbling just like the back row.  The one next to her though, she knows all the routines so I try to follow her. The key word here is try.  No matter how much I try, I still look like a fucking geek.

Everybody, except for me, Scari, and one other Far Side wannabe from the middle row, wear fashionable exercise clothes. I'm sure the wannabe dreams of the back row where the pressure is off but none of us are budging.  We sure as hell don't want to be in the middle row where people can see us from behind.

I thought about getting fashionable workout clothes but I'm too self conscious about my lumpiness to put on skin tight attire.  I stick to baggy sweats.  Plus they hide the giant orthopedic knee brace I wear to keep my left knee from popping out of place. I didn't know I had a bum knee until the first class when I almost fell half a dozen times when it gave out.

Scari & I, again, are the only ones without the fashionable Zumba enhancing weight belt.

OF says they hide the lumpiness...I don't have the heart to pop her bubble.  They're supposed to jingle or jangle when you move your hips.  We also have rubber wrist bands with bells attached that K, the instructor, gave us at our first class.  I wear mine when I remember because I don't want to offend her.  Mine is usually silent though, because of my inability to move my arms if I'm trying to get the feet to move...sometimes I shake it just to show I can make noise too.  Usually when I'm wiping my face or pulling underwear out of my butt.

K is going to start a Pi-Yo-Tone class soon.  Some kind of Pilates/Yoga thing.  We all want to go when she does it.  Odd for me, since I actually own a Pilates machine that I bought off QVC.  It sat in my living room holding cat and dog toys until I finally hauled it over to OF's weight room.  OF has a great, albeit unused, weight room...courtesy of her ex (he whose name shall never be mentioned). Her friend, Blondie, used to use the weight room all the time.  She was an exercise fiend. Since she moved away though, it's kinda like the land of lost toys...only for exercise equipment.

I totally get why OF doesn't use her exercise equipment.  It's why I didn't use the Pilates machine. When you see it, it seems like such an easy thing.  You think, hey even I could do this.  But once the butt hits the couch, it's kinda hard to tear yourself away from Justified, or Game of Thrones, or The Real Housewives, or Hoarders, or Duck Dynasty, or Flipping Out...geeeeez...I watch too much fucking TV.  Yep, it's better to leave the house where the exercise gig can have my undivided attention...even if it can't get the required rhythmic movements.  Thanks for the inheritance Mom.

It's the Stoopidist Thing...

Things We Talk About At Work

We don't have the typical work environment.  Meaning we aren't politically correct...or socially correct...or any other kind of correct that comes to mind.  It's not that we don't know how to behave correctly.  Sometimes we have to...but only when there's a stranger in our midst...who would undoubtedly be offended by our lack of correctness.  Also it's kind of a social services agency where our seeming lack of compassion for those less fortunate than us would be severely frowned upon by almost anyone who didn't know us.

Last week I was sitting and chatting with The Princess who shared this bit of information after eating mass quantities of black jelly beans...

Princess:  Not only do they make your tongue turn black, they make your poop kinda blackish green looking.

I didn't know this because I hate the black jelly beans and always give them to her. It never occurred to me to ask her to stick out her tongue and prove it.  If she proved that, I'd take her word for it on the poop thing.  Actually I'd take her word for it on the poop thing anyway.  It would be totally weird if I asked to see her poop just to prove it was made blackish green by black jelly beans.  Even though I may be stoopid, I'm not totally weird.

I do know from personal experience that eating jelly beans will give you terrible gas.  What would life be without personal tidbits of information like this? Why do cute little jelly beans cause copious amounts of gas in the intestinal tract?  How does that work?   OF (Old Friend of undesirable snackage fame) didn't believe me about this.  She thought I was making it up until I put out bowls of jelly beans at our last Bunco game.  The next day at Zumba class she came up to me and said "You were totally right about the jelly bean thing...I couldn't believe it."  Vindication can be sweet...

So anyway, back at the office, in walks Curly who's just returned from the multi stall bathroom in our building.  Picture a forty-something woman with a giant head of hair that's sort of a macabre mix of Shirley Temple meets Woodstock.  Curly would have made a great hippie if she'd been around during that era.  Alas...she was born a little too late.

Curly has way bigger balls than any of us when it comes to discussing personal things.  We all know way more about her husband than any of us should.  To the point where I'm kinda embarrassed to look him in the eye when I run into him. There are certain things you shouldn't have knowledge of about men you haven't been intimate with...

So anyway...Curly plops down in the nearest chair and kinda giggles as she relates her latest bathroom adventure...

Curly:  You know how when you fart and it starts coming out and then gets really high sounding at the end?  I just did that in the bathroom and started to giggle a little while I was sitting there.

Me:  Was there someone else in there?

Curly:  Oh yeah.  There was a lady in the next stall sitting there.

We all start laughing.  Me because if I was trying to sneak a poop or just had an accidental noisy fart escape in a crowded bathroom I wouldn't come back and brag about it.  In fact, I'd still be sitting there waiting for the bathroom to clear out so I could escape without being identified as the loud farter or sneak a pooper.

Since we're on the subject of bodily functions, I decide to ask...

Me:  Why do you raise one of your hips off the chair when you have to fart?

I know I'm not the only person who does this because everybody seemed to understand the question and acknowledged having done it.  If you think about it, it's not like you're gonna get shot into orbit if you fail to raise a hip so why do we do it?

Then we started questioning if it's possible to walk or run while you're peeing or pooping.  I've never known anyone to do this have you?  It seems like even little kids pause when they're filling a diaper doesn't it?  But then a lot of older women, especially ones who've given birth, pee a little bit if they move suddenly.  They even make hygiene products (pee pads) for these little lapses in bodily function control.  Are pee pads any different than sanitary napkins?

Maybe we should all pretend we're astronauts and just wear clothing that accommodates all bodily functions. You know if you stop and think about it might be way less traumatic if we never stopped wearing diapers at all.  If we all just walked around pooping in our pants our whole lives then we'd never reach that critical undignified moment when we get old, lose control of our bladders and bowels and have to start wearing diapers again.  I have to admit though, the thought of sitting in a pile of my own poop is way unappealing...but it doesn't seem to bother babies...okay, they might get a little fussy...but when you change the diaper they're fine.  Would it be the same for us?

What do people in really poor countries use for toilet paper?  And where do the contestants on Survivor go to the bathroom?  Do they have toilet paper?  Because I've never seen it as a "luxury item" they can win in a contest, have you?  I wonder about things like this.

Maybe next week at work we'll have some exciting conversations about explosive diarrhea or projectile vomiting.  I can't wait.  It's the stoopidist thing.