Score One for the New Girl

Bobbie2 Comments

OMG OMG OMG O YOU GUYS!

I was totally right.

The Group Power instructor (Group Power being the hold these large barbells and do things like lunges and squats and lifts and all that in time with the Bee Gees and Twisted Sister, I so kid you not) WAS A CHEERLEADER! I totally called it. No one can have that much fun with a large group of people doing something that most would find only circumstantially appropriate.

Oh, fine, thus endeth the cheerleader hate. (I wasn’t one in high school, could you tell?)

Also, this was my second Group Power class. And I doubled my weight (no, not what I weigh, but what I lifted and hoisted and “singled” and “doubled” and all that). I am feeling very very good. I know I will be feeling very very sore tomorrow, but we aren’t there yet.

In other news, my latest big unwieldy project at work hopes to deliver on Wednesday, the boy is wrapping up soccer this week, and I am going to the ballet (alone! and I’m glad!) on Thursday.

I think I’ll get strangers to take a picture of me there with my iPhone.

Tail End of a Wagon

Bobbie1 Comment

Remember that part in Indiana Jones, where he’s being dragged behind the truck, through gravelly road, hanging on by his whip?

Harrison Ford actually did that stunt, although he was given extra clothing and they pre-dug a ditch for him to “ride” in. Somehow gravel down the front of your shirt at however many miles per hour doesn’t sound like a good idea, though.

I feel like that lately. Halloween came and went way too quickly, and I am inundated with Christmas decorations throughout Target and any other retail outlet (except, comfortingly, Trader Joes). Folks, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

At work, the machine is inexorably charging to the end of the year, an amalgamation of metrics, goals, initiatives, and projects, culminating in an end-of-year event in Las Vegas in which I must present (both personally and professionally). At school, the first progress reports have come out but the schooling gets harder, the volume of new things increases and the personal responsibility the boy must have increases — making the winter break a fantastical respite not only for the holidays (for he celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas) but for the break from seven hours of daily seating and applying oneself. At home, we are contending with the recent passing of a beloved grand (and great grand)mother as well as the imminent passing of the family pooch; it’s very unlikely she’ll make it to her 10th birthday (Christmas Eve).

Let’s not even get into my sporadic ability to get to the gym — four times last week, but it’s becoming a real project to get it in this week.

I’m attempting to slow down the truck — or at least add speed bumps — by putting new and interesting things here and there. For example, Thursday evening I am going to the Pacific Northwest Ballet to see the All Tharp programme. I have no idea if I’ll like it, the idea hit while listening to Twyla Tharp being interviewed on KUOW’s Weekday with Marcie Sillman.  I have a front-row, far right of stage seat. I will be able to see the dancers up close and personally, but at a hyper angle.

I’ve gone through my annual list of things I planned to do and learn this year — I still do not know how to drive a stick shift, I still do not know how to ski or snowboard (I think I’ll change that to snowshoeing or cross-country ski).  I’m not sure if adding these things is going to slow the wagon down enough for me to get on, or speed it up so I fall off.

Either way, I will still be contending with accelerated gravel a bit longer.

Belated

Bobbie2 Comments

So, a couple of days ago it was the Day of the Dead.

I’ve always liked Halloween and the DotD, and I’m not really sure why. It’s morose, if you think about it. For someone whose first real, personal experience with death was a classmate killed in Afghanistan — Rest in Peace, Michael Montgomery — it’s odd that I’d groove on a holiday that celebrates that Time After Death.

Disclaimer/NB/FYI: I am not religious. Like really, let’s not even go there. Like the first thing I will do is set up a scientific postulate and attempt to prove it using anything but syllogisms. I totally respect religion, and I’m frankly envious of it in some cases, but I simply don’t have the ability to have faith. It sucks. Just sayin’.

My grandmother died today.

Being, as I am, the child of four parents, I had (appropriately) four grandmothers. I also had four grandfathers. My stepfather’s father died before I ever knew my stepfather, so that doesn’t really come into play. My stepfather’s mother died when I was 20. She stopped sending letters and that’s how we figured it out. My father’s father died a month before I was born, locked in a freezer by accident and then died from pneumonia — I have the original telegram sent. My father’s mother died when I was about 14, and her legacy is amazing cooking and a kitchen that I would love to reproduce in my dream house. Also, a faint smell… I can’t place it yet. Something like old roses and lilac. Everyone has a grandma that has *that* smell and she was it.

My mother’s father died when I was in my early 20’s, a conservative old bastitch who liked deep sea fishing and lived as salty as the sea he fished. My mother’s mother died from emphysema and a distinct distaste for food which I will never understand, probably disappointed that neither I nor my mother became debutantes. Still, she had good Christmases (until I moved to Washington). My stepmother’s father died in March of 2002, I know this because in April of 2002 I found out I was pregnant and conception date tied with the day he died. He was an old-school bastitch of a different kind, an engineer, a showman.

This leaves my stepmom’s mom. The grandparent I’ve had the longest.

Her name was Maria. She was born in Argentina.

She never quite got the handle of the english language — she always spoke a broken sort of english, reserved in privilege for a woman who moved here in her 20’s — was it 30’s? — with her husband and two children (she would have a third, my Uncle Sergio, once ensconced in the States). She cooked like no one else — seriously. As I told my son, if it was Nana and Bobby Flay in the kitchen, Bobby Flay should just get out because he had no place. When my cousin Marisa and I were growing up, she’d make Doll cakes for our birthday — like go get a Barbie, and make an entire dress for the Barbie out of cake. Whatever cake you like. The dresses were intricately decorated — I mean, frosted — and the flavor was amazing.

She made my wedding cake. She grew the Calla Lillies for my wedding bouquet in her garden, and flew them up with her from California for my February wedding.

She made empanadas and fresh pasta and bread that made you want to stuff yourself until your eyeballs popped out. It didn’t matter that she lived 90 minutes away: you’d drive there to get fed. You weren’t allowed to clean up, you were barely allowed to stand, ever. Her bottom-floor bathroom was all pink tile.

It didn’t matter what you did, or what you wanted to do, in your life. She was proud of you. It didn’t matter what sort of pitfalls or challenges you’d encounter. She knew you’d meet them. She had that quiet confidence that a grandma has, that refuses to be refuted, and that will silently quell any sort of fears or nervousness you’d get.

I didn’t visit her once I knew she was going downhill. I’m a coward, I admit it. This woman was so vibrant and outgoing she’d have a million sewing projects going at once, be halfway through reading her bible for the forty-third time (Grandma had holy water in her entryway), and be cooking 8-dozen ravioli for my uncle and his political party cronies. I couldn’t imagine her invalid in any sense. It wasn’t right.

She isn’t anymore.

Posted in UncategorizedTagged

Twit

Bobbie1 Comment

Twitter is my modern D&D dice: I play with it here and there when I need reassurance that there are other geeks like me, and table it when I get too busy with grown up stuff.

Of late there have been some hashtag games on Twitter that I’ve been tempted to participate in, most notably #moviesinmypants and #thingsIhaveincommonwithWesleyCrusher (courtesy of @wilw aka Wil Wheaton, who is actually much cooler than Wesley Crusher). The problem is, my Twitter is attached to my Facebook, and my Facebook is attached to people at the office, and while I don’t believe that I give an aura of someone excruciatingly professional and remote I don’t know how serious I’ll be taken if I do things like tweet*:

The Ring in My Pants #moviesinmypants

or

I took myself way too seriously as a teenager #thingsIhaveincommonwithWesleyCrusher

Twitter itself has undergone an evolution in purpose and function since it began. It was first 140 character microblogging– something to say about your day or your opinions or your orifices or your cat, that sort of thing. With the accessibility of hashtags, trending topics, and increased user base, it’s become a collective gumwall for people to post upon. Much like the 1970’s Kilroy was Here, you can follow people you don’t know and watch them as they post to people they don’t know. I personally have sent tweets directed at Leonard Nimoy, Nasa, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton, Eddie Izzard, and Simon Pegg. I can *guarantee you* that none of them has read those tweets, but somehow knowing I sent them makes me feel better. I think.

I will say this: I adopted FourSquare recently and abandoned it just as blithely; an application by stalkers for stalkers has limited relevance in my post-SayAnything years. I would have a difficult time, however, giving up my twitter feed: it serves as endless bite-size entertainment, like leftover Halloween candy.

Which goes straight to my hips.

*Why is the action of using Twitter indicated as “to tweet”? Shouldn’t it be “to twit”? Or is that too honest?

A Special Hell

Bobbie1 Comment

Of late I’ve attempted to go to more of the fitness classes offered by my Big Fancy Gym. For one, it helps my cost-ratio-comparison calculator (hello, Excel!) and for two, it keeps me honest when it comes to working out. It’s very easy to beg out of the cardio bike at 30 minutes because there aren’t 12 other people doing it with me, and there isn’t a preternaturally chipper fitness freak in front of me eyeballing me and 12 other people on said cardio bike. Classes start at 60 minutes and some are 90.

Disclaimer: I do actually love my instructors. But it’s that special kind of love that smacks of… well… smacking.

Today’s experiment was “Group Fitness”; actually it’s one of 3 group-type exercises offered at my Big Fancy Gym. It’s the first time I had gone to this class and for sheer entertainment value (yours, mine, and ours) it cannot be beat.

It was helmed by a woman who is probably 2 years my senior, 50 pounds lighter than I am, and I would not want to meet her in a dark alley. Folks, when I say she was ripped, I mean that the girl in the Bowflex ads wishes she were this gal.

This class revolves around weights — as in, weights on a barbell that you lift and reach out with in various poses (on your back, in squats, in lunges, sitting, etc.) and other weights (not on a barbell) that you do the same, and then some good ol’ fashioned crunches that make your abdominal muscles scream at you for days. Also, she plays classic 70’s and 80’s buttrock for the soundtrack. I got my money’s worth.

What was wholly unexpected is that, upon entering and looking lost (my best defensive mechanism to date), the most frail-looking older lady came up to me (85lbs soaking wet, maybe) and offered to help me set up. She encouraged me to take lighter weights (“Don’t try to be a hero”), set me up, and then did her set-up. Her set-up was a little more aggressive than my set-up but boy howdy am I glad I followed her advice.

Many parts of my body want divorces from other parts of my body.

Our instructor kept checking in with me — publicly (“How’s it going Bobbie? You doin’ okay?”) — and all discourse was in that chipper post-Cheerleader “I’m loving the burn” voice you get only from people who, well, love the burn. “And we’re doing this for 8!” “In twos!” “Double time!” were common chirpy cheers.

Let me make this perfectly clear: if there were a way I could have ditched this class halfway through in favor of a couch and a Cabernet, I would’ve. As it was, I had cheerful participants all around me offering me helpful advice and if there’s one thing I can’t *stand* is the thought that *someone else* thinks I can’t do something. I don’t mind ME thinking I can’t do something, but that is not an opinion that is okay from anyone else. That sort of thinking got me into two half marathons, a triathlon, a two day bike ride, and a master’s program. Okay, so we can all agree that it’s a good sort of thinking.

But my biceps, triceps, quads, hammies, and glutes all agree: What the (*deleted expletive*) was I thinking?

Screams and Scares and Pizookie Pie

Bobbie2 Comments

Oh my. There are two things battling for Most Scary Aspect of Last Night: Maris Farms’ Haunted Woods, and my caloric intake.

BJ’s in Tukwila is known for good beer and pizookie pie (a large, warm cookie with a scoop of ice cream on top); the have this unfortunate aspect of their menu, however. Like most 1Up to Applebee’s type places (Cheesecake Factory, anyone?) they  have a menu that rivals a phone book, so that you actually spend time reading it. They should get Patrick Stewart or James Earl Jones to read it, I’m sure they could lend the proper gravitas to something as ubiquitous as a Cobb Salad. I digress…

At the end of the BJ’s menu, in very very small print, is the nutritional information (including horrifically realistic calorie counts) for everything you can get there. Having something as seemingly innocent as chicken pasta got me nearly four-figures in the hole, and the couple of glasses of wine followed up with most of a Cookies and Cream Pizookie Pie pretty much finished me. I’m fairly certain I’ve had enough calories to power me for the week. Scary, scary stuff.

Then we went to Maris Farms. Maris Farms is located out on the Sumner-Buckley Highway, and you just know as you exit the 410 E you aren’t in Kansas anymore. We were passed by a large red pickup truck with ANTLERS on either side of its rear-cab windows. ‘Nuff said.

The Haunted Woods at Maris Farms is ostensibly 30 minutes (not including line wait, which we didn’t have much of thanks to fast passes) and it feels longer. If you’re a screamer (Hi!) you will be hoarse at the end of it. If you’ve been there before, note that they do change it up — I went last I think 3 or 4 years ago, and there was definitely some novelty. The souvenir mud lining the base of my jeans and my black docs was part and parcel of the fun. This year it included dead bodies, zombies, ICP kids, hillbillies with chainsaws, ghosts, vampires, people being sawn in half, people being medically experimented upon, a weird set of walkways that make you feel like you’re being squeezed out of them, trick floors, pitch-black mazes, and people just scaring the hell out of you.

It is important to note that there are porta potties just outside the entrance and exit, but nothing midway.

I think I’m good for another 3-4 years.

Trick or Treat!

Bobbie2 Comments

Halloween has recently had to tie with Thanksgiving for my personal favorite holiday, but up until then was the absolute fave. ‘Tis awesome. You get to dress up as someone else, you get to eat candy, you get to give other children candy and hand them back to their parents. And you get to do things to your front yard that involve bones and dead plants and it looks good.

This year I optioned not to do my traditional Halloween party — the personal party will be at Maris Farms in their Haunted Woods, and that’s all good and I will blather about that maybe after I actually go. To get my costume fetish on, though, I participated in our floor’s Halloween Contests.

That’s right. FLOOR. As in some 70-odd people on one of the 15 floors of Expedia got together under a common goal: beat the pants off of the other 14 floors for prizes and notoriety. And that’s right: Contests! The two up for grabs were for best kids activity and best decorations. Originally intending to do haunted pirate-age, we switched gears to Haunted Alice in Wonderland.

I give you a chance, dear readers, to guess who put herself into knee socks, a blonde wig, and a black headband.

If you guessed yours truly, you are correct. Much to my everlasting chagrin, I put my most charming sweet innocent shy naive and unassuming self forward and got in Alice character for three hours yesterday. But this didn’t start yesterday.

Four weeks ago a small band of folks got together and charmed some cash from the higher-ups on the floor. (My higher up is the most awesome, by 250%). We committeed up and figured out games and theme and who could bring what. As the weeks crept by we had images in our head of the new Alice in Wonderland’s tea party (complete with Mad Hatter): a small pile of books in the corner of a long table, with mismatched linens and dishes, and of course, haunted items. (Did your Wonderland Tea Party include severed fingers, a skull, and some prepackaged brains? no?).  Large paper mushrooms (and 3-d ones, with the help of redecorated umbrellas), trees, flowers, bats, spiders, a small graveyard, a castle, and a red mountain circled the periphery. The movie and soundtrack to Alice in Wonderland played in the room, Jabberwocky was written on the whiteboard, and Cupcake Royale donated 200 miniature cupcakes as an exit gift. Everyone brought in mismatched chairs, we spread spanish moss over the floor (plastic first!), and developed puzzle pieces and games (bean bag toss, find the coin in the pool, and “fishing”) for small children to play in order to get to the Grand Prize — a conference room table piled with candy and the Mad Hatter.

We didn’t win.

I think.

Here’s my quandary: we didn’t win, we didn’t even place, and I honestly do not know how that is possible (we checked out other floors and agree there was only 1 that was better). Even the lady running the event isn’t sure how it’s possible. Every parent and child who walked through that room had their jaw drop, were amazed at the depth of detail, and thrilled that not only did the kids have interactive games but little prizes along the way. People, I had parents requesting me to be in pictures with their kids. I had kids and parents saying “This is just like Disneyland!”.  So yes, we didn’t win the contest.

But I haven’t seen the folks on my floor this excited about anything in a long, long time. We started decorating Thursday night at 2pm, folks got in early on a Friday to help decorate in the morning. We had volunteers for the games stations, people bringing in their GOOD dishes from home just to lend authenticity. The level of excitement and happiness and *care* on the floor was beyond anything I’ve experienced in my six plus years here.

I am personally proud of our floor.

And in my opinion, we *did* win. So there.

Birthday

Bobbie2 Comments

Today is my birthday. I’m 37.

When I was a kid, I looked forward to my birthday first and foremost as the day when everything would magically go right: there would be cake and presents and I’d be the star of the party. Oh, and presents. Wait, I already said that. At any rate, there would be wonderful awesomeness and it would rain down glitter and stars and balloons and even when I was in junior high (which I hated, hated, hated) it was still a pretty good day to be had.

The thing is, when you’re a kid, you spend a lot of time planning and daydreaming about your next birthday — usually starting the day after your last one — and then you get to the big day, and then you start daydreaming of the next one. These daydreams are punctuated in pause by Christmas (or Hanukkah or whatever other large family occasion one celebrates) and occasionally ameliorated by summer break or vacations.

In my 20’s, my birthday was still special, but of course then it involved alcohol, a check from my parents, and some sort of dining-out thing. Occasionally it included a trip to Vegas (for, living in San Diego, Vegas is a cheap and expedient trip). The amount of daydreaming and expectation surrounding the actual day, however, did start to dwindle.

In my 30’s, I had a child, sold and bought a house, got a divorce, and embarked on a new career. All of these things chipped away at the birthday expectation time, until we arrive to this, my 37th birthday.

I just realized yesterday that today was really IT.

Here is an absolutely accurate account of how I have spent this birthday:

1. Woke up. Late. As in, I hit the alarm clock one too many times. So, I spent my at-home birthday morning rushing around the house like a wildwoman, dressing in the first convenient thing (grey dress, black boots, tights), fed the dogs and off I went.

2. Oh crap, I didn’t moisturize. And I’ve run out of in-car moisturizer. Target time, where I buy moisturizer. And Oil of Olay’s latest foofy answer to wrinkles and eye bags (I kid you not). Anti-aging cream as the first purchase of the day: it says something, doesn’t it?

3. Oh crap, I didn’t eat breakfast. Ok. Top Pot time, even though I wasn’t  all happy about my weight (which was -2 on Thursday but +1 on Friday. I have worked 5 of the last 6 days so I do not know what is up there).

4. To work, barely in time for meeting 1. Then there’s meeting 2, some more work stuff, blah blah. Then it’s off to

5. The Chiro, who is Always Chiropractic & Wellness, and I highly recommend them.

6. Well adjusted, I went home to walk dogs and sort out this and that whilst I waited the 20 minutes for the

7. Parent Teacher conference for the boychild. Boychild is doing well, we have plans to increase the wellness. And stuff. So then I rush back to

8. Work, where there are more deliverables and stuff.

And that’s really my day. I may go out later … it’s looking like I will… but I can’t help but think this is a comment on my relative age: the day has revolved around the boy, wrinkles, work, and the generalized responsibilities of the suburban single parent. There is no birthday check in the mail, there will not be presents and cake and candles, and I’m fine with that. At least I haven’t got to the point where birthdays are a chore, or to be avoided.

I expect that’ll be next year.

Time Managed

Bobbie1 Comment

I love me some Halloween. Love it! I have gravestones I put out in my yard and skeletons I put in my entryway; the season is not complete unless there are two trips to the pumpkin patch. So when I realize that Halloween is 10 days away (pretty much) and I have done no decorating, have no costume, and have a limited number of hours left to contend with all of that, I get a little sad.

Lately I’ve had to force time for things that are not Boy or Work. Things like workouts, seeing friends, dates, hobby time are all limited to a few hours a week. If I have a project due (Harry Potter Hogwarts robe, anyone?) it can endanger the presence of the rest. If I have to travel for work (NYC last week), it can shove everything aside as well. Last week I worked out twice. One bike, one swim. That is not sufficient.

Making time for working out (which is necessary, because with the holidays approaching and cold weather incoming this little heifer gained some weight already) is a really big issue of late. I’ve managed to hit the gym 3 times in 4 days, and hope to get it to a regular 5x week, but it’s at the sacrifice of other things. There are just not enough hours in the day!

One might point out that if I didn’t sign myself up for thirty-odd things I wouldn’t have this problem. I suppose I worry that if  I give up one or two or three I’ll suddenly have pruned too much (like I do with plants) and I’ll be stuck with an ugly empty unproductive life.  The male person teases me about me worrying that my idle hands are the “devil’s playground” and, minus the religious implication, that may be correct.

It’s a mark of a grown up that part of me sees the logic in the Halloween products making it into stores so much earlier in the year. It may take that sort of planning after all.

… in the City

Bobbie1 Comment

No, no sex. Sorry. This is the public blog.

I write from a Starbucks on the corner of West 63rd and Broadway, next to my hotel. Having stayed up to a dubious hour (1am anyone?) I am in need of the caffeine injection that is being served up, ironically, by a cup of decaf.

The city (or this tiny pocket of it, which is all I’ve seen of NY but for my cab ride between JFK and here — NY cabs always make me nauseous, I don’t know why) is much less odiferous then when I was last here. The combination of a rainstorm and mid-60’s weather makes it nearly clean, and I can see why some would choose to live here. Me, there’s no way: the sheer volume of people can be oppressive.

In true efficient business trip fashion, I’m here for slightly under 48 hours and expect to fly out in my cramped little Delta seat tonight. My only cultural brush was the view of the NY Philharmonic just outside of my window, which was nice. That, and catching Clash of the Titans the night before last while jetlagged.

Yes, business travel is soooo glamorous.

That said, on to the hotel review: The Empire Hotel, which is two doors down from my Starbucks at present. It’s a beautiful hotel, tastefully appointed, with a fitness room (recumbent bike only), meeting rooms, a restaurant (we didn’t eat there last night, opting for a Mexican restaurant with half-naked divers of GiJoe Action Figure size positioned side by side on a tile waterfall), and a lounge. We made good use of the lounge last night.

The individual rooms were purported to be small by NYC standards according to the reviews I had read, but I really didn’t find them so. (Rooms at the Paramount are small). The beds are very comfortable, I wish I had been able to enjoy them more but jetlag left me but six hours each night to actually sleep. Toiletries are Supreme Unleaded, with L’Occitane making them and you indeed smell like Froot Loops when you’re done bathing. This is not a bad thing in the city.