I Feel Sorry For My Husband

Nighttime is the accepted time when decent people get to be in bed gathering their rest for the next days' demands upon them.

Sometimes that idyllic circumstance occurs, most nights, thanks to me, it does not.

Hubby is the long-suffering sort who puts up with me mostly because explaining a murder charge to our Bishop might be a trifle inconvenient.

I have nightmares. Not the garden variety "gee that was unpleasant", roll over and go back to sleep stuff. Oh no. They are heart-pounding, gut twisting, violent and agonizing dreams that leave whomever is nearby absent their sleep.

Sometimes, I wake myself up screaming, talking, yelling in my sleep. I have only vague snatches of what was dreamed but they are, in and of themselves, enough to make my flesh crawl during daylight hours.

Years and years ago, I heard the Disney inspired song "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes". How tender. How inspiring. How not true...

Who in heaven's name would dream about the crap that destroys the opportunity for people to get a decent night's sleep? Who would want to be terrorized in the night with imagery that Hollywood would be hard pressed to duplicate even with some creepy dude in a hockey mask? Who in their right mind would dream to be scared out of their wits and, additionally, to scare their bed mate half to death as well?

I don't wish for dreams like that. I wish and hope and pray for pleasant dreams. I don't get them all of the time and like the scriptures are fond of reminding me "there must be opposition in all things". I suppose that having horrible nights like last night are some sort of balance for having had several nights of dreaming world travel was within my grasp - pleasing vistas, glorious history and wonderful foods of the world all during the blissful hours between going to bed and hearing the alarm.

Instead, last night was an opportunity for my husband to convince me that I was alright and that what was causing me to scream was not real, not there and not happening.

I hate crap like that. I absolutely hate it. I wake feeling tired because I haven't enjoyed restful sleep, but worse, I wake feeling guilty because I have deprived Rick of HIS sleep in my nocturnal battles against the invisible evil of the imperfect dream world that occupies my thoughts.

I hope tonight is better. Otherwise, I may be compelled to direct the music tomorrow while lying down. I can keep the tempo with one foot raised above the little divider... I'm sure I can...

Meanwhile, the sun is shining and the darkened phantoms of the night are fled. I pray they stay gone... I can only stand so much "opposition" in a 24-hour period.

I Smell Like a Goat

Ah, the joys of exercise. . .

Watching the taut, firm, fit people around me effortlessly glide through their various pit stops in the gym circuit du jour. . .

Seeing the muscle men strain and grunt lifting massive amounts of weight and then letting it drop to the floor in an earthshaking exhibition of all that is "He-Man" in their workout . . .

Turning on my special motivational playlist which is all about kicking butt and taking names . . .

and coming home smelling like a goat.

There must be something I am doing wrong. Offhand, I don't know what it might be, but when I manage to offend MYSELF, I know that it's time to head out the door and go home to hit the shower . . . and maybe stay there for a week.

The taut, the firm and the musclebound seldom sweat. Oh sure, once in a while I'll see a bead or two of perspiration trickle down to their chin, but I'm not seeing the buckets of life rolling from their pores.

On the other hand, I leave puddles everywhere I go even on days where I haven't been in the pool. Faithfully, I sanitize and wipe up after myself to remove both the "ick factor" and the sheer grossness of having to see that puddle of ooze on the equipment I have given my all to use.

Today was a cross training day.

Then, to prove how awesome I truly am, I came home and moved furniture in preparation for wedding guest.

Just when I was feeling like the most excellent woman in America, or at least in the SEC, for all of my hard work both outside and inside the home, the central system's automatic fan kicked on to stir the air in the Merrill Casa and the goat-like aroma of my being assaulted my eyes, my nostrils and my decency.

HOLY FLAMING COW PIES ON STEROIDS!!! I NEED A BATH!! UGH!

When other people leave the gym, they seem to be glowing with a healthy countenance and the ability to go to town and do their shopping and errands. I leave the gym with the distinct ability to offend skunks and ruin my reputation. Well, what's left of it at this point...

Where is the justice?

I have to come to grips with the fact that I am not going to just slip quietly out and go about my day. I should just plan to run through the car wash that is a scant few blocks from the gym and call it good. I do wonder though... do they have a "frequent flier" program so I can save a few bucks on that whole pass through each day?

Since I have somewhat of a phobia about public showers, I generally drag my sweat stained carcass home and shower so that I have the blessing of my shower and my creature comforts which I am not compelled to share with people who may have the blue goofus fungus on every single cell in their body.

Today, I delayed the shower to get something resembling housework done. Well... "DONE" is a strong statement. More like beat down into a relative submission for the three rooms I have called "good" over.

Now, it's time for this goat . . . uh, GIRL, to hit the shower in earnest. Otherwise, the scent will permeate the entire house forever. And I'm sure that would create a journal moment for our guests that I'd just rather not contemplate.

Calgon... take me away!! Just don't bring me back until I smell like a floral meadow instead of a meadow muffin.

The Candy Man Can

Willy Wonka should really drag his carcass down here to Alabama. I could use his help in the candy kitchen. And he should bring along a carload of those little Oompa Loompa's with him. I have discovered that actual skill is required to make candy. And I do not possess it.

Those little orange faced dudes in Wonka's candy factory have it all over me when it comes to their secret chocolate making skills and I'm not afraid to admit it.

At first, I thought it was my lack of sufficient estrogen that was the problem. Then, after my good friend Sophie came over to lend a hand, I realized there were hidden steps to creating chocolate snacks that eluded me completely.

Martha Stewart doesn't have to put up with this crap!! Come to think of it, neither does Willy Wonka. I'll bet not one single Oompa Loompa has ever had a chocolate meltdown over candy catastrophe. That's because from the moment they were saved from the rotten, Vermicious Knids and snozwangers they have been entrusted with Wonka's most dear candy making secrets. And Oompa Loompa's are notoriously tight lipped unless they are singing about how bratty your kids are when they come to visit the factory with their Golden Ticket and their attitudes.

Alas, I seem to be missing my Golden Ticket. I've checked all of my pockets. So far, I have come up with a lint ball the size of New Jersey, three gum wrappers from a flavor I don't chew (who has been using my jacket?) and a sticky residue that I am just not willing to contemplate. Therefore the unmistakable conclusion bears down upon my tired mind. I'm now reasonably sure that the fine art of edible chocolate goodness will always have to be purchased instead of made by my pitifully unskilled hands. Why didn't my genealogy reveal Oompah Loompa ancestry? Or that Willy Wonka is my 4th great uncle twice removed?

The good news is that every single failed chocolate that gave its life in the attempt at creating wedding candy didn't die in vain.

We ate them. It was the kindest thing to do. Really.

To have thrust their mangled forms onto wedding guests would have been both unnecessarily cruel and also put a serious pall on the joyful events as the guests would be compelled to create complementary phrases to describe said candy without creating offense.

"Yes, the candy was . . . uh, a form of . . . art. Yes, ART!"

"Oh, I don't eat candy. Ruins my teeth..."

"Don't you hate it when the caterers make a mistake on such an important event?"



We shall accept their pity without reservation. I'll be the one wearing the shopping bag over my head because they won't be able to look into my eyes and KNOW that I am the candy murderer.


The Candy Man can . . . so where is he when I need him?


WILLY WONKA! WHERE ARE YOU???

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger... or at least you smell that way

Gym time is both a blessing and a curse. 


A blessing because I can't hear the phone... my music is up WAAAAAAAY to loud...LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA can't hear yooooooooooouuuuuu... and I refuse to leave until I am sweaty. At least in the gym.  It's really hard to tell if you are sweating in the pool.


The curse part comes in when you are really gunning it to see what you can accomplish in the least amount of time and trying to work in the muscle toning/building circuit to make sure the old bod doesn't collapse into a pile of goo.


The ideal is, of course, to work enough to feel like you have accomplished something, but not so intensely that they must call for Med-Flight.

Today was a good day.

According to folk wisdom and Kelly Clarkson, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I may or may not be stronger for the efforts but I certainly SMELL that way. And isn't that half the battle? If you smell like you worked out, surely that translates into some tangible proof down the line that you haven't spent your entire day sitting on your ass doing nothing of substance. Doesn't it?

Modern lore and wisdom decries anyone who doesn't fit the fitness mode. A little cellulite here or there or a paunch over your belt means somewhere along the line you must have "given up" on yourself.

Au contraire, mon ami!

Sometimes those precious bits of flab, fat and cellulite are markers of a life's passage. Shifting gears to do what is essential often means that the reasonable person puts themselves on the back burner in order to care for the needs of those unable to care for themselves.

But getting back into the swing of things and being able to 'walk and not be weary, and run and not faint' is not an exercise for the faint of heart.

Thighs jiggle and shake in a most unbecoming fashion and seeing the reflection of your changed self is hardly an appealing way to see yourself first thing in the morning. We all tend to have a body image of ourselves  that is out of date and reflects us at our absolute best. Sadly, what we tend to portray is the reality of our circumstances. Tired, not quite ready for prime time and booted from the Olympic trials even for consideration as a scorekeeper.

But today was pretty good. Although my body shape doesn't reflect the effort, it does have a shape. I am "round". I'd like to go back in time and paste this head and brain on the body I left behind a couple of decades ago. It was the one that still played racquetball a couple of times a week, the one that could still run and the one that hadn't been smashed up by a drunk driver.

All in all, I'm rather thankful to just be here in ANY shape... even if that shape is round.

The assumption that all I do is eat is kind of frustrating. I have a bowl of cheerios for breakfast with a small glass of OJ. Most days, I have some fruit about mid morning. And since my morning starts at 5:20 a.m., mid morning is most people's late breakfast. Then I try to have something sensible for lunch. The other day, I splurged on myself and had a sandwich from Subway. It was whole wheat, turkey, mustard, provolone cheese and all of the vegetables they could shove in there minus the banana peppers and onions. Of course, there were a few extra black olives. I drank water to wash it all down.

As luck would have it, that night for dinner, we simply feasted on leftovers du jour. I had the homemade Chinese sweet and sour. It was mostly oriental vegetables, broccoli and a few oriental noodles. I also had a glass of chocolate milk. Skim milk, or 'nekkid milk' as it is called around here, should count as some kind of bonus because it doesn't seem like much even with a spoonful of chocolate whipped into it.

Sad.

I realized as I was racking up the five miles today on the bike that there are people who can and do accomplish a lot more. Rather than being jealous, petty or angry that I'm not there yet, I've often wondered if my lack of success is a combination of a lifetime of various injuries added to a dead thyroid for which I now take medication or if some folks are just born with more physical ability and haven't learned to see both sides of the coin yet.

SIGH.

I keep doing what I am able to do as I am able to do it. Maybe one day, I'll get to go back and pick up that more vibrant and youthful body.

I think that day is about 10-ish on resurrection morning.

I'll let you know how that works out.

Meanwhile, I'm offending myself with the smell from the gym, and I have things to do besides marinating in my sweat.

Happy trails.