Michelle Tells Tales: April 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Dan the Elephant Man

Dan is finally getting down to business and trying to take care of his sleep apnea. I'm so proud! But ene more...I'm amused! Here's what he looks like with his mask on.

Poor guy is having a hard time with it though and it's been difficult for him to fall asleep. Here's hoping that tonight goes a little better :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Sometimes it just astounds me how absolutely clueless some people can be about their own behavior. You would think that by the time a person is 20, 30, 40 years old, they would have some sense of who they are and the persona they put out to the world. It's called self-awareness. And, I know someone who doesn't have any. At all.

Now, I'm not talking about those people at the beach who wear bathing suits when they probably shouldn't. Those people are just a little clueless. Or maybe they're brave, who knows. I'm talking about the other people. The people who think they are one way, but are the complete opposite. How about an example?

The person I am referring to, above all else in the entire world, hates lettuce. (she doesn't actually hate lettuce, but I'd rather not go into the true behavior she exhibits so I will use this lettuce analogy instead. I thought of this example last night while I was in the produce section of the grocery store.) And I mean she HATES lettuce! She can't stand to look at it, talk about it, touch it or even think about it. She'll change the channel when a cooking show comes on that features a recipe that contains lettuce. Above all else, she despises people who eat lettuce and has on many occasions, tried to get them in trouble for it. Most recently, she contacted a member of local government to complain about a woman (<--this part is actually true) who ate a salad (<--this part is not true).

The problem is, this woman is a lettuce farmer. She owns thousands of acres of lettuce and sells it to make a living. She is the president of the National Association of Lettuce Lovers and the Lettuce Eaters of America Federation aka. L.E.A.F. (I totally made that acronym up and it is awesome!) She spends about 12 hours a day talking about lettuce and eats it for every meal. But, if you were to tell her that it seems she actually loves lettuce, she would kill you. I mean, she could be eating a salad in front of you, telling you how much she hates salad eaters and still not get the irony. Then she would stab you with her fork. Well, not literally, but she would probably scream in your face and call you dirty names. Seriously. It's happened. (<--this part is true)

Now, this is obviously a silly analogy and her actual dichotomy is much more sinister. But, my point is that it amazes me that someone can act one way and absolutely despise people who behave the same way. I just don't get it. Just another mystery of life I guess.

Sculpt

I wanted to try something different for my workout yesterday and while I was driving home from work, I remembered that last Wednesday I saw an interesting class going on at my gym. It looked easy enough, so I looked it up and found out that it was called "Sculpt." I was a little nervous to try it because I've never taken a class at my gym before. I've seen them going on, but never had the guts to try something new. But, I worked up the courage and decided to go for it!

So, walking into the class, I immediately activated my standard plan of action when I'm in a place where I don't know anyone and I have no idea what's going on or what I'm supposed to do - pretend that I know what I'm doing by repeating what everyone does just a little bit slower and just a few seconds after everyone else. It works every time. At restaurants, public libraries...anywhere where I'm unfamiliar with my surroundings.

I started with walking in and choosing a mat. Yes, these are where the mats are EVERY time I take this class. Then claiming a spot. This is my usual spot. I'm such a regular that everyone knows not to put their mat here. Then stretching and following the teacher during warm ups. I totally know what I'm doing because I've taken this class a million times.

But here was where I hit a snag. Apparently, everyone knows to bring two sets of weights. One lighter set for the shoulder exercises we started with, and a heavier set for the bicep exercises. Oops. I was stuck with my 5 pound weights which were WAY too heavy for the 100 shoulder presses we did. (By the way that is not an exaggeration. We literally did like 100 shoulder presses...AFTER we did 100 squats.) I do this class so often that I need 5 pound weights. Three pounders would be too light for my strong, totally buffed arms. I ended up doing ok with my weights, but when the teacher said "if this set is too much with weights, feel free to put them down"...I totally took her up on the offer.

Then came the set with the body bar. Or balance bar. I'm not exactly sure what it's called, but everyone knew to bring one to class. The gym supplies them, but they are outside of the classroom and when it was time to use it, I couldn't go outside and get one. That would go against my plan of acting as if I knew what I was doing. So, I just pretended that I CHOSE not to get one and did the exercises with my weights instead. But, about halfway through, I noticed a bar sitting against the wall next to me that no one was using. So I picked it up. Yes, this is the body bar that I brought into the class for myself. I was just choosing not to use it up until this moment. OMG. This was the heaviest thing ever!! The sticker on it said 15 pounds. I looked around the room and couldn't figure out how everyone was doing these exercises so easily with this massive stick. Not after all the exercises we had done up until this point. Turns out...there are different weights for the bar. Obviously, someone had brought this one in and decided it was too heavy and got a different one instead. Smart girl.

All and all, I was able to keep up for the entire hour. For the most part. When it was time for the mat work at the end, I took advantage of the fact that everyone was staring at the ceiling and not me in the mirrors, and took a nap. Well not quite, but I did totally slack off. There was no way I could do 50 bicycles. My entire body was on fire. The teacher was lucky she got push ups out of me.

Needless to say, I am sore. I considered not brushing my teeth last night or this morning because my toothbrush is just way too heavy. And washing my hair was torture. But, the next class is on Sunday at 9am...and I'll be there!