Aerobics on Steroids

Ok. So how many of you remember old school aerobics? The lycra tights and leotards. The leg warms and high top Reeboks with the Velcro fasteners. So cool. It looked something like this.

Well, today, I had the opportunity to do aerobics on steroids! I went to a Zumba class at my gym and it looked something like this (I'm the woman in the back in black; do you like my weave?). If you watch it, get past the first little warm up part. That was tame compared to what the instructor in class today did!! It was a lot of fun and somewhat embarrassing. I did a little better than I would have expected with my old body and 80's moves. I think one of my butt cheeks flew up and hit the woman dancing next to me in the face at one point but she was very gracious about it. 

I'm thinking about writing that show that films things and then shows them in slow motion to understand the physics of moving objects. I think it's called Time Warp. This exercise class involved a lot of hip shaking -- fast, slow, in between. It would be very interesting (funny? gross?) to see just what my body was doing when it got to the farthest point when I was shaking my hip in one direction and then shook it quickly in the opposite direction. 

Despite the frightening physics of my body for that hour, it was really pretty fun! I'll just have to keep going so I can keep up with the shaking, moving, cha-cha-ing, salsa-ing and hip hopping that was going on. It feels good to really be back in my body again. Hello, body, remember me?    

I'm an Arteest

I've been having a lot of fun letting my artistic side come out lately. I showed the mandalas I'm planning on painting for my bedroom wall in a previous post. I just finished one of them today! Ta-daaaaaaa. 


One down, 5 to go. I enjoyed putting these together so much that I designed three more for the living room to fill that big bare wall. Here's what those will look like (photoshopped them into a picture of my living room wall). I went online and looked up silk screened wallpaper and found some really great designs. The ones below are based on some of the samples I saw online. The possibilities are endless. And it's really not that hard. Much less expensive than buying artwork and more unique too! These are available for purchase for the small sum of $5000 each. Who can put a price on artistic genius?

 

I'm a Wus

I'm watching the new series from the Planet Earth people. It's called Life. I love seeing the nature in these shows but I absolutely can't stand the footage where one animal is hunting down another or when animals are fighting and get injured. I just feel so badly for both of them! I want the predator to get the food they haven't had in days or weeks but I don't want the poor prey to die a painful death. Does anyone else have a problem with these kinds of scenes? I know this is the essence of what life on earth is about but I can't stand it! I feel that way sometimes when I watch sports, too. I just don't want anyone to lose.

Third Time Wasn't Charm

Well...to follow up on the birthday cake saga. I ended up making the cake when I got to the house and while Maddy and Geoff were working on dinner. The good news is that the cake didn't burn and we had a really nice birthday dinner with Maddy. The funny news is that the cake wouldn't bake through! I've never had this much trouble getting a cake baked. We ate it in its state of cake on the outside/pudding on the inside. As far as I know, none of us got sick so I guess the eggs weren't contaminated with salmonella. It tasted good. Maddy blew out all the candles and I managed to get a fuzzy picture of it. 

 
What's really funny is that the cake was still hot when we ate it and it actually melted the bottom of the candles. Check it out! They look kind of obscene...I'm so glad the weekend's almost here...Phew!

Walking

I'm so tired of the elliptical trainer at my gym. I hope to join a gym closer to my apartment that also has classes. They have classes like Caribbean Fusion, Zumba and BodyJam. They're dance-based aerobics classes and I think they sound like fun! May help me step out of the 80's dance style I still have. :-) Anyway...until I'm able to get into that groove, and probably after I'm grooving, I really like taking walks from work.
     This park is on my favorite route and I've always liked the curvy sidewalk. On this particular overcast, dreary day, it made me think of the way my life's been lately. Lots of twists and turns but always moving in the same direction. That's a good thing!
 
Today -- much sunnier -- I saw my first dwarf Irises of the season. The Siberian Iris is one of my favorite flowers (I don't like the bearded ones) and dwarf Irises are just a cuter version of those. I took these on my walk today. The one with the three flowers made me think of me and my two sisters. That reminded me of how our father used to refer to us as Ruby, Pearl and Sapphire. I can't remember who was which but I think he did cherish us in his way when we were little. The second photo is of some that seemed like a weird green-purple color. Hadn't seen that before. The last ones look like little angels with their wings ready for flight. I loved seeing these on my walk...

Maddy's 19 Today!

Well, our little bud has blossomed into a full grown woman-flower. Hard to believe. I'm pleased that she's chosen to have dinner with me and Geoff. We're making her the dinner of her choice at the house. My task was to make her favorite dessert -- chocolate truffle cake (an orgasm for your mouth) -- and I've failed miserably. 
     It was quite an adventure. The cake is a flourless chocolate cake so it's basically a bunch of chocolate, butter, egg yolks and some whipped egg whites. It only bakes for 15 minutes. The obnoxious electric oven at my apartment clearly bakes very hot and not very evenly. 
   For your amusement, I've written down my thoughts as the disaster unfolded:

"Yummy! This is one of the best cakes ever. I'm glad Maddy was born and even more glad she asked for a Chocolate Truffle Cake on her birthday. Ok. Batter's mixed. Got the cake in the oven. I'll go put away the clean clothes that have been laying on my bed for a week while it bakes." 

Beep. Beep. Beep. I walk back to the kitchen.


"Mmmmm.....smells good...wait a minute...smells burnt!! (enter various swear words here) I hate this oven! What am I going to do? Ok. Breathe. Focus. I have enough chocolate to eke out one more cake. I'll whip up the batter really quickly and will be able to get it done before I have to be at work for my next client. Ok. Second chances are great, right? Got it in the oven now. Twenty five degrees cooler. Setting the timer. Ok. While it's baking, I can go package up the curtains that have been sitting on my bedroom floor for two weeks so I can return them. How do I get this huge curtain in that teeny little plastic package?!" 


Beep. Beep. Beep. I walk back to the kitchen. 


"Mmmmm.....smells good....wait a minute. Why isn't this baking? I'll turn the temperature back up. At least it had a chance to bake on the inside but not burn on the outside. Aren't I clever? I'll let it cook 5 more minutes. That gives me a chance to brush my teeth and put on a little make up to enhance my natural beauty."

Beep. Beep. Beep. I walk back to the kitchen. 

"Mmmmm....smells good...wait a minute! It still isn't baking! OH...MY...GOD. I turned the oven off when I burned the first cake and panicked! I hate this oven! What am I going to do? Ok. Breathe. Focus. I still have about 10 minutes before I have to leave. I'll turn the oven on and will let it bake for 5 minutes. That should finish it up, huh? That gives me a chance to clean up the brown fuzz that's been accumulating on my bathtub and in my belly button from the new towels I bought when I moved in. I think I have some Q-tips in there."

Beep. Beep. Beep. I walk back to the kitchen. 

"Mmmmm.....smells good...wait a minute. Smells burnt!! (enter various swear words here) I hate this oven! What am I going to do? Ok. Breathe. Focus. I don't have any more chocolate and I don't have any more time. I've baked two cakes and I've burnt two cakes. I'll just go to the store, get more ingredients and will make the cake when I get to the house after work this evening. Third time's the charm -- anything worth having is worth waiting for -- no pain no gain, right?" 

We'll see.

How Embarrassing!!

I just watched a portion of Jessica Simpson's new show The Price of Beauty. The premise of the show is that Jessica and two of her pals gallivant across the globe to explore how beauty is defined in cultures other than her own. I was really hoping it would be interesting and that she would explore the deeper issues of how beauty is socially defined and often biased in favor of the privileged. I watched part of it and then had to stop. It was too painful and infuriating. 
    Jessica and her pals manage to be our new "ugly American" ambassadors, embodying everything repellent about white, privileged people from the US. I can't even express how rude and ethnocentric they are in this show. And they don't even realize it!! 
In one fell swoop, these people demonstrate how shallow, silly, dumb, and disrespectful US citizens can be. A woman from Thailand talks about how women in Thailand like their skin to be light. Jessica then talks about how all the women in the US want to be tanned. Um...I think that's a fairly limited portion of the population in the US, Jess. Like only the white people. Who live in California.
    She and her friends publicly recoil and gag at the food sold in a public market (granted the food was fried grasshoppers, worms, and roaches among other things). Not something I would want to eat for sure but they were really disrespectful. I can't even begin to describe all the ways this show was annoying to me. 
    She had such an opportunity to really explore beauty at a deeper level and she basically squandered it. The three act like they're going to a zoo put together for their enjoyment and exploitation. Yuck...I think I need to watch less TV. I don't know why I expected anything better from the likes of Jessica Simpson but a girl can dream, can't she?!