Huh, exercise

A good friend of mine is a runner. (She shall be referred to as "Crazy Running Girl" as she has one of those unique [but beautiful] names where, if you ran into her completely out of context of my wacky blog world, and you heard her name, you'd be like, "Oh, Quinella! You're the runner!" and how embarassing is that? Of course, I initially was calling her just "crazy girl" but she added the Running there in the middle, because apparently that's the only kind of crazy she is, and really? who am I to argue?) Crazy Running Girl just ran a half-marathon and recorded a new personal best time of just under 2 hours 30 minutes. And this is why I call her crazy. Because seriously? I can't think of anything, other than sleeping or eating, oooh eating, that I'd willingly do on a weekend for 2 hours and 30 minutes without stopping, Nothing. Most certainly not running. Unless someone was chasing me. And trust me when I say, I'd drop dead well before the 2:30 mark.

And therein lies my problem with exercise. It's not something you can do at the last minute. I excel under pressure. I live for the wild ride at the end, the night before a paper is due, the day before the product ships. I am in my element.

Exercise is not that. Like these biofeedback exercises I'm supposed to be doing? Yeah, I was supposed to start 1 week ago, I see the therapist in 1 week, and I somehow have to now cram 2 weeks worth of exercises into 1 week. Well, there's a sort of pressure there, but I'm not convinced that my quick flick fibers (oh my God, don't ask) will really be up to the task.

I know, I know, I should set goals. And work toward them. Real goals, like this would have been a good one: Don't look like a fat cow at your sister's wedding. Which is next week. Wherein even my seven month pregnant other sister will be considerably slimmer than me. But see, there's no pressure. Until, you know, this week. When I have to go shopping for something to wear and will most likely end up in a muumuu. And there's no exercise that can be done to spare me of this fate, not now.

So I'll be the one in the pictures dressed in something that looks suspiciously like a bedspread, with a pinched look on her face, as she crams in some last minute flexing of those quick flick fibers.

Towanda Emergency Car Repair

Last week the battery in my car died. Why does that always happen when you're on your way somewhere, like to work, and never when you're just idly thinking, maybe I'll run out for fun and not for something that I need? Anyway, it's not like I didn't know the battery was on its way out. The service shop had warned me back in December, the car very reluctantly started at the grocery store the week before. I even had a fresh battery sitting in the car, just waiting to be installed. It took the battery just finally giving up the ghost (with a little nudge from me leaving the overhead lights on all night - oh yeah? you try to remember to turn those things off when you're trying to get a sick kid into the house, go on with you) before I actually changed it.

That's the point of this post. I changed it. I popped the hood, removed the old battery (with the help of a can of Pepsi - that thing about how soda eats corrosion? Totally true), and put the new one in. I didn't call AAA, I didn't drag my husband out of bed, I didn't throw up my hands and cry. I just changed the battery.

When I was in high school, my high school debate partner, Linda, drove us to a meet one Saturday. On the way home, her car started to overheat. So we pulled into a gas station to see what was going on. Turns out she had almost no oil in the car. But it's not like she knew that. She couldn't even pop the hood.

I think that women too often rely on others to get them out of a car jam. It's so easy these days to call a tow truck, to ask a neighbor, to put your hands on your hips, hike your skirt up a bit higher, and hope that a big strong man will come and give you that jump, fix your flat, solve your problem.

To this, I call bullshit. Girls, really? You need someone else to help you? Where is your inner Towanda?

So I'm considering setting up a series of Towanda Emergency Car Repair clinics, where we'll learn the following:
- Popping your hood
- Checking the oil. Adding more if needed.
- Adding windshield washer fluid.
- Adding antifreeze.
- Jump starting your car. The smart way.
- Changing a battery.
- Changing a flat tire.

For the advanced, I'll bring in a friendly mechanic to teach us the basics of car repair - this course will be called, "How to not get screwed by the auto repair guy just because you have boobs."

I'm not suggesting that we all get ASE certified, or even that you learn how to pull the radiator out of your car (thanks for showing me that one, Dad, good skills), just that we, as a gender, stop acting so god-damn helpless.

It's barking snow rats all over again

Brigit may be my doppelganger, but oh, she is my father's granddaughter.

Me: Brigit, what do we say after we toot?

Brigit: A witch! Run!

And then the tent said, "You're welcome"

Tyler has this theory, that women cannot stand to see men sleep. That we go out of our way to make sure that they do not get sleep. Something to do with payback for all the sleep we lose when the babies come.

I have to admit, there may be something to this theory. At least subconsciously, anyway. It seems that I'm always asking him, "Are you asleep?" just as he's on the edge of sleep. Which, when you think about it, is a stupid question. If the person's asleep, he's not exactly going to answer, and if he's not asleep but is still lying with his eyes closed, despite sensing your presence with his spidey sense, then well, asking's not really going to help, is it?

If there is some grand conspiracy against the sleep of a good man, kids are fantastic co-conspirators. They don't walk, they stomp. They don't talk, they shriek. They cannot not slam doors. Someone's always poking, pushing, pulling someone else. And the cats are always looking at them funny.

So the sleeping? It is mighty disturbed.

Thanks to our Visa's favorite store REI, we have a solution - a one-man tent, pitched at the top of the yard, under the canopy of pine trees, and a sub-freezing mummy bag. It's like a room away from his room. A nice hide-out that the kids seem happy to leave alone.

I'm a little worried, though - Tyler's been talking to the tent lately. Singing sweet songs of love, devotion. I'd tell them to get a room, but it seems a bit of an oxymoron, doesn't it?

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An extra bit - Tyler has another theory: foreign actors are taking over the airwaves. Soon good American actors are going to be penniless, forced to work in Bollywood. Just look at the evidence - The Mentalist and The Beast - leads from Australia; Eleventh Hour and House - leads from England. Even Sons of Anarchy. And forget about Without a Trace - 2 from Australia, 1 from London. It's hard for a good actor who doesn't, you know, have to fake an American accent to get ahead these days.

Children these days have no respect for their elders

Conversations from today:

Rory: Mom, are you old?

Brigit: You're not rock and roll, Mom!