life: super powers not included

photo by specialkrb

Thanks for all of your great comments on yesterday’s funny gym post. I’m thankful I don’t go to the same gym as some of you. Scary things happen.

In other news, I had all intentions of planning out my meals for the week and sticking to the list strictly—like my life depended on it. But you know what? When you’re only a mildly good cook (or a mildly sucky one, depending on how you look at things) you can’t count on not screwing things up. Like the night I burnt the roasting eggplant. Or when The Man and I got home at 8 p.m. one night and just felt like a bowl of cereal.

I’m telling you this because despite my planning and my lack of follow through, we’ve actually used up all of our groceries without throwing away some vegetables that had started to decompose in the far reaches of our fridge. Sounds like no big deal, right? Well, maybe for you. But for The Man and I things seem to spoil in warp speed. (OK, we might settle for cereal too many nights a week. I swear that will change as soon as I quit my job and become a professional socialite. I’m right on that…)

Though we didn’t fail at our stick-to-the-grocery-list plan this time, we didn’t 100 percent succeed either. But here’s the best part: We’re going to try again and again and again until we get it right. Don’t you love how life is like that? You don’t get thrown out for messing up or being lackluster. And as The Man told me a few nights ago: The world isn’t going to end if the eggplant burns. (Though I did spend a good deal of time arguing that it might.)

Here’s where I turn this food-related post into a life lesson (marvel at my cleverness): If you fall flat on your butt and fail, so what? Pick yourself up, throw out the blackened eggplant dust yourself off, and give it another go.

I’m logging off wonderful blog readers (did I ever tell you how super you are?). The Man has some work to do and since we’re one computer short—no, it didn’t die. It’s just in the hospital getting some diagnostics done—he gets dibs on it.

What’s your burnt eggplant moment? And, no, it doesn’t have to be related to food. I have many failures in other areas of my life. But we don’t have to talk about that here. Cough, knees. Cough, cough.

photo by steve & jenna copley

The gym’s a silly place if you really pay attention. Because Wednesday is nothing more than a reminder there are still two more days to the workweek, I thought some musings might make for an entertaining break:

1. Old women have confidence, but sometimes that’s not a good thing. Eighty-year-old fake-n-baked woman at my gym with strange stomach wrinkles who wears a white sports bra and old spandex, I’m looking at you.

2. Leg presses tone your butt. Just when you think you’ve pumped your quads into submission you feel a deep ache in the butt. Yup, the exercise works that bigtime.

3. If you plan on doing reverse crunches, yoga, or other twisty poses, loose shorts aren’t the best idea. Thirtysomething woman who wears short shorts (and, thankfully, underwear) to contort, I’m talking to you.

4. Vitamins, protein shakes, workout clothes, and water double in price when they enter a gym.

5. 7 pm is the worst time to hit the gym if you plan to use cardio equipment, free weights, weight machines, Bosu balls, exercise balls, the exercise mat…

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photo by digimist

There are usually four ways I react to scientific studies.

The first, is what I call No Duh. That’s what I felt when I read about researchers who actually spent money to learn high heels can cause heel and ankle pain. Obviously these were men.

The second is what I call No Way! As in: Really? I never in a million years would have guessed that and yet it’s right here on my computer screen. It’s usually accompanied by wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

The third, I like to call Not Again… These are the studies that deem a formerly evil thing (a food, action, habit, you name it) really, really, ridiculously good for your health. You can spot these by the key words “surprise,” “astonishingly,” and “changes everything we thought about…”

The fourth is called Errr? That’s the sound I make when I read one of these studies that doesn’t make any logical sense. That’s the type of study I read about on the New York Times today.

The study involved 19,220 women age 39 and older. The researchers followed their drinking habits for 13 years then categorized the women as light or regular drinkers. Ready for the Errr? moment? The nondrinkers in the group gained more weight (nine pounds) over the years than those who imbibed (three pounds). The chances of being overweight were 30 percent lower for drinkers than teetotalers.

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photo by -maria-

For doing absolutely nothing at all, I had a pretty productive weekend. Sorta. I may have taken it easy a bit, but I did get to the gym (yes, that’s a big, fat positive DID), read a good book, and left my apartment clean enough that you could eat off its floors. (Though I’d advise against that.)

Of course on Sunday night I was glued to the television for the Academy Awards. Ever since I was old enough to realize movies were made by directors and film crews, and that the people on the screen are just playing pretend, I’ve been a huge fan of the yearly Oscars hoopla. My sister and I would always tear out the Oscar ballot Entertainment Weekly published back in the day (this was back before the magical Internet made it possible to learn every single thing about a movie without seeing it; I’m not sure if the magazine publishes this list anymore). We’d make our guesses and watch Oscar night as names were called.

I was there the night Gwyneth Paltrow in her bubblegum pink dress won for Shakespeare in Love. I watched as Roberto Benigni climbed across seat backs to accept the award for his role in Life is Beautiful. And I remember when Adrian Brody won for his role in The Pianist and planted a big wet one on Halle Berry. I could go on and bore you until you clicked away, but that’s not good blogging is it?

So I’ll just say I really enjoy the Oscars. [Read more →]

photo by garry
This has nothing to do with my weekend. Unfortunately.

Hooray for Friday. (Do I say that every week? It’s because I really mean it.) Hope you’ve all had a great week so far. The Man and I are in a money-saving mood so tonight we’re making a home-cooked dinner instead of going out to eat. When you can’t really do much physically, eating out is about the only way to get out of the house. I know, thrilling.

I don’t know about you, but this weekend’s shaping up to be ho-hum. I’m going to do a little writing, probably clean, and most definitely organize. And if I don’t go to the gym both days, I’m blogging my address and asking anyone within a 50 mile radius to come over and beat me up. (All right, so I’m being a little dramatic.)

Most weekends I have big dreams but rarely get everything done I need to. (See last weekend’s failed gym attempts.) So here you go—my list of dreams and the unfortunate reality:

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photo by just luh.

You all had some great insight into yesterday’s discussion about kids’ chronic snacking. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, check it out here and leave your thoughts. I think going forward with the rising rates of obesity, the topic of emotional eating versus eating for hunger is going to continue being a big issue.

A couple people mentioned the fact that kids today are also moving less. That’s a whole other problem, but they go hand in hand, right? Well today I read about a study on our lack of movement. (Nope, this trial didn’t involve kids, but you can see how it could apply to the video game generation, too.)

I understand the irony of what I’m about to say seeing as I’m hooked on five—count ’em: five—TV shows. (If you’re curious, they’re Lost, 24, Fringe, Bones, and Heroes in that order.) Anyhow, turns out twenty- and thirtysomethings who watch more TV are more likely to develop risk factors for heart disease by the time they hit their 40s.

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photo by wynlok

So it seems the consensus is that The Man should get his butt to the personal training table and sign up for a couple sessions. That’s what he plans to do and, after that, he’ll decide whether he’s ready to go forth on his own or stick with a trainer until a list of exercises is burned into his brain. Or until we go broke. Thanks for all of your feedback. Did I ever tell you that you guys rock?

Today during lunch (at which time I ate a heavenly turkey bacon BLT and wondered why I don’t pack those more often) I read a great article on the New York Times Well blog. In it, the writer explained how over the past 30 years American kids are getting more and more calories from snacks. What she didn’t mean was that kids are eating six small, snack-like meals a day consisting of yogurt, fruit, nuts, veggies, and whole grains. What she did mean is that kids are supplementing three full meals with the kind of crap you find at 7-Eleven: chips, cookies, and sugary drinks, probably including those mysteriously bright-colored Slurpies. The kids are eating pretty much ’round the clock, according to research.

“My underlying fear is that we’re moving away from being hungry and eating for satiation to just eating,” said Barry M. Popkin, co-author of the study and director of nutrition epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. “Food is there, and we eat.”

What with the current obesity epidemic—thanks to which most kids will live shorter lives than their parents and end up with diseases like type 2 diabetes—the nonstop snacking sounds about right. I guess eating packaged foods will do that to you.

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photo by vu bui
Can a personal trainer get me to do this…more than once?

I used to be the kind of exerciser who bopped from machine to machine until I worked out on every last one. It helped that the gym labeled them. I’d start with No. 1 and pump my way down the line until I hit 30. Done!

Now that I’ve been through physical therapy, I have a set of leg-strengthening exercises to choose from each day. I have a bunch of abs moves I throw into the mix. And, yeah, I work my way down the arms machine line before picking up the free weights and lifting. What I’m trying to say is, over the years I’ve learned more than a few exercises I bust out at the gym.

The Man? Er, not so much.

The Man spent his formative years on one sports team or another, so he’s kind of lost all by himself in the gym. Sure, he’s mastered the treadmill, bike, and elliptical. But when it comes to lifting, he wanders the gym like a little puppy sniffing out a good place to bury its bone. He does the whole machine thing, working his way down the line. Then, the minute he walks out of the weight room he piddles around until I’m ready to head out.

Which is why he’s thinking about getting a personal trainer. Here’s the deal:

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photo by joe thorn
That’s not our new bookcase. I wish. Ours is a sliver of an Ikea one.

Welcome back to the workweek, all.

I had one of those weekends where I simultaneously felt like I got a lot done and did nothing at all. (With a little failure and guilt thrown in for a good measure.) Don’t ask me how that works.

We got a lot done…
While I plugged away at some editing for work, The Man put together a bookcase and two nightstands from Ikea. He’s pretty awesome at deciphering those instructions, which is a talent seeing as they’re drawn by 5-year-old Swedes.

Of course, buying new furniture never stops at construction. So I took a break from work to rearrange our bedroom. Sounds easy, right? Well, it would have been except one of our walls is slanted. (Someone must have thought, “Wouldn’t it be fancy and special if the far wall was tilted?” They were wrong. It’s just annoying.) Since I like symmetry and parallel walls, it took about forever to find a setup where I didn’t feel like all my furniture was askew.

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photo by strategyjohn

There’s no birth certificate, so I can only guess. My work computer was born some time around 1995. Most days, it drags along like an old man with emphysema trying hard to choke out a long story.

Sometimes I’m patient and listen to the whole story—bearing each painful breath between breaks. Mostly, though, I just wish I could pull the plug.

“Open my e-mail, Microsoft Word, and the Internet,” I’ll say with three double clicks. At first, it stares at me like it’s waiting for a whistle or sign or smoke signal. Or maybe it’s just trying to understand my demand.

I imagine it thinks, So much to do! Such tiresome tasks! Should I open e-mail first? Or maybe Word? But the Internet is so nice. And what if I can’t get the e-mail open at once? Should I try to perfect that before I start on the others? What to do?

On a good day, I jostle it from a deep sleep at 8 a.m. By 8:20 it’s rearing to go, and I’m done longing for the Mac I have at home. By 9 I’ve finished reading e-mails and eating breakfast. If all goes well, my computer hasn’t yet taken a nap.

But yesterday it conspired with the rest of technology to thwart my plans.

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