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Hot Pilates: Trial By Fire

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Pilates Equipment Hot Pilates Funny

This actual Hot Pilates episode has been recorded by Hannah in the style of Craigslist Yoga Mat Guy. Note: Some names have been changed to protect the satirized.

[4:15pm] We arrive: Auntie Kim, Sarah, and me. It is an 80-degree day and we are already sweating. Sarah and I are accompanying AK to her hot Pilates class out of a combination of bribery (dinner and froyo after, if we survive) and blackmail (“I bought you shoes last week; I can take them back.”)

[4:20pm] We walk into Yoga Vibe. The receptionist has us sign something – a death waiver, I’ll wager, by the fine print.

[4:28pm] After putting our shoes and other belongings in lockers, we equip ourselves with mats and towels. AK grabs three face towels, which troubles me. I take four. We enter the studio. It is stifling. “How about the back corner near the door?” I suggest too loudly and too hopefully.

[4:30pm] Val the instructor walks in, swinging her muscular, tanned arms. She cranks up the heat. I am faint already. Dehydration or fear? I cannot tell. The music starts and we begin.

[4:33pm] Perhaps I will evaporate before my will does.

[4:37pm] Any sweat collecting on my abdomen is getting squeezed out by the sheer amount of crunches and core work. The redundancy of a “warm-up” routine becomes too clear.

[4:40pm] It is ninety-flipping-five degrees. The last of the ice in my canteen has melted under Val’s fiery gaze when she catches me lying on my back, not doing leg lifts, huffing and puffing out my last will and testament.

[4:44pm] Epiphany. I could pay off my student loans by selling Febreze outside the studio.

[4:47pm] Planking on my stomach counts as planking. IT’S ALL I HAVE.

[4:49pm] As we do tricep push-ups I stare at my reflection in a puddle of sweat on the floor. Why is my reflection someone I don’t know? She is so…red and angry-looking. The conditions under which I am able to observe such details elevates my level of nausea even more.

[4:51pm] I see mirages in the rippling heat. A Jamba Juice goes sailing by.

[4:53pm] I can no longer see through the film of sweat on my irises. I grab something and wipe my face with it – a soggy tortilla? Nope, just Towel #3. Sarah has long ceased to return my pained glances. Her eyes are unfocused as we do modified burpees. We should have worn our swimsuits and scuba gear.

[4:55pm] Mountain climbers, hips close to the ground. I try to pretend I’m mountain-climbing to Yogurtland. I pity the fools who wore makeup to class.

[4:58pm] Tell me more of this Joseph Pilates so that my kin may avenge me.

[5:00pm] We’re barely halfway done and I already smell the strong stench of defeat. And feet.

[5:02pm] The girl on the mat in front of Sarah must often be mistaken for Jillian Michaels. If she takes a break, I’m automatically entitled to five.

[5:03pm] My flesh is melting off like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[5:05pm] A woman in a magenta racerback tank top gets up and leaves. We all subconsciously lean towards the door for the draft of air.

[5:08pm] Val announces we will be doing several rounds of 15-second intervals of high knees, jumping jacks, butt kickers, and jump squats. I think mean thoughts.

[5:10pm] Magenta Racerback Tanktop returns from the restroom. What does that make her? Not very smart.

[5:11pm] As I run in place I wonder if we are like the citizens of Pompeii, running from impending ash suffocation and Vesuvian heat.

[5:13pm] Quasi-Jillian-Michaels pauses for one breath; I collapse with a wet smack on the floor. I am covered in white towel fuzz like a newly-hatched chick.

[5:15pm] Are these tears or rivulets of sweat?

[5:17pm] More disconcerting, whose sweat and tears are they? The vigorous jump squats have prompted an unwelcome projectile-exchange of salt water.

[5:20pm] Val instructs us to lie down. As if we had a choice anymore. We do the bicycle exercise on our backs and pedal to the next ring of Inferno.

[5:22pm] The foam exercise brick goes between our knees for side crunches. If that brick falls, Val warns, everyone does 10 burpees. If that brick falls, I respond mentally, she’s getting an IOU. Good thing the brick is plastered to my skin.

[5:24pm] We are told to set the bricks aside. My aim is unlucky and misses Val entirely. I try to wrap my arms around my knees and pull them to my chest as instructed, but my skin is so slick with sweat that I nearly end up punching myself in the nose.

[5:26pm] Are those…angels twirling above me? Praisellujah, Val has turned on the ceiling fans!!!

[5:28pm] We end up in the child’s pose. I use the moment to wipe the waterfall streaming down my face on the towel beneath me, so it appears that I am shaking my head facedown in utter despair.

[5:30pm] Val turns down the room temperature. My pores shrink so quickly it’s almost painful. I grab my saturated towels and mat and swim towards the exit.

[6:00pm] I have showered and drunk an adult rhinoceros’s body weight in water, but I am still sweating.

[8:00pm] I spend the rest of the evening trying not to agitate my abs—no laughing, crying, moving, or breathing. And I google a lot of… Arctic wallpapers.

This is a modified reprint of af a post that first appeared at sandhannahtizer.tumblr.com. Reprinted with permission.

Photo by Robert Bejil, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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On Becoming Almost Vegetarian in Texas

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Wasabi Pea Veggie Burger Becoming Vegetarian

Over the last two years, I’ve taught myself to cook, and while I would no longer qualify for Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America,” I won’t be hosting a food show any time soon. When my 10 year-old asked me to make him lunch the other day, he said: “Mom, can you cook a grilled cheese—you know, the kind with the black on the bread?”

I finally discovered that the secret to cooking is to follow the recipe until you know what you’re doing (this might seem easy to you, but I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda gal). Now that I have some experience, I enjoy substituting ingredients and coming up with my own food creations. I’ve even made a few meals that all three of my guys liked enough to ask for second helpings. Score!

Last night, after a generous neighbor brought over bounty from her garden, I chopped cherry tomatoes, zucchini, squash, and okra and mixed them together in a large bowl. Grabbing the olive oil, I ladled two tablespoons over the vegetables and then sprinkled it with salt and fresh-ground pepper. Finally, I stirred everything together and spread the bright green, red, and yellow mixture onto a sheet pan. It all went into a pre-heated (425 degree) oven for fifteen minutes. And it was a big hit with my family.

This new hobby came about because I began eating more of an almost vegetarian diet. As someone who’s struggled with an autoimmune disorder and fatigue for most of her adult life, I’m continually searching out ways to feel better and increase energy. After quite a bit of research, I decided to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet and limit my consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs. It was not a decision I made easily; after all, I’m the daughter of a cattle rancher.

My ever-supportive husband, Carey, promised to join me on the plant-strong venture. Both of our fathers had open-heart surgery in the last year, and we want to be proactive about our own health. Plus, we’ve each needed to lose seven to ten pounds for the last seven to ten years. We knew changing our beef-heavy habits, especially in the Lone Star State—the land of big hats, big hair, and big steaks—would be tough. The day before we began eating to live instead of living to eat, Carey said, “Dena, I really need your support. I can’t do this without you.”

He lasted a week.

At the time, though, he worked as a marketing director for Chick Fil-a. So I forgave him. And Carey’s always been an all-or-nothing kind of person. Around here, we call him “extreme boy.”

In Rachel Ray’s magazine, I read about a vegan gentleman who hadn’t cheated on his diet in eighteen years. That’s a long, long time. Then again, he lives in California.

The last time I ate at a restaurant with friends, I almost succumbed to temptation after my server brought me a cold, limp veggie burger that looked like a moldy hockey puck. My friends had a field day, making Texas-sized fun of my choice. But I’ve gotten used to the good-natured ribbing (pun intended). So instead of ordering something else, I sent the bean burger back to the kitchen—to be cooked instead of served straight from the freezer. It came back sizzling with little black lines, and I loved it.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t eat perfectly; far from it. There are times I indulge in a steak, ice cream cone, or pork chop. Much of the time, though, I live contentedly without too many animal products—not because I’m particularly Pro-Chickpea—but because I simply feel better eating this way. And if I burn the grilled cheese, it’s cheaper than burning a T-bone.

Wasabi-Pea Encrusted Veggie Burger Photo by Janet Hudson, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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The Good Mother’s Guide to Preparing Your 17 Year Old for the SAT

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Coffee Preparing for SAT

How to Prepare Your Student for the SAT

1. No studying. If a lifetime of education can’t get a person through the SAT, then… whatever.

2. Have the student prepare everything the night before the test:

-choose clothing
-set aside high protein breakfast in fridge (plain yogurt is good)
-pack a bag of snacks, ID, ticket, calculator, extra batteries and no cell phone

3. Make student go to bed by midnight (instead of the usual 2 am fare that keeps him/her sleeping until ten o’clock in the morning)

4. Go to bed late, because you are up trying to get student to go to bed by midnight. This will make you extra sleepy. So important! Set your clock for one hour before student is to arrive at test. You are to arrive no later than 7:45 am.

5. On the day of the test, sleep through your alarm. Get out of bed at exactly 7:44 am.

WAAAAA! [take a private Good Mother moment with the universe, then jar your student out of bed with a loud announcement of the final 30 seconds now available to show up on time. Take note of the uncanny speed with which your 17 year old is actually capable of moving. Save that knowledge for later.]

6. Race to the school (only 1 minute away, thank your lucky stars), try to enter by the wrong door, be chided by security, go to the right door with a hairstyle that would make any student proud of his mother, and deliver student to the SAT.

It’s all good. Student is awake (that counts for something) and couldn’t eat the plain yogurt in the car, because you forgot to sweeten it. You will, for the sake of expiation, accidentally eat the yogurt upon returning to your home (accidentally means the yogurt was sprinkled lightly with granola that has almonds, to which you are—not fatally—allergic).

That’s it. You are officially a good mother, who has successfully prepared your child to take the biggest exam of high school life.

Photo by Deborah Austin, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

4

Poetry is Going to the Dogs!

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poetry-to-the-dogs funny dog poems

First it was the cats. Now, it’s the dogs.

Dogs are writing poetry. I am not making this up.

Don’t believe me? Try “Another Bag”:

Love
True, unbridled love
Is looking at what I just did
On the sidewalk
Then picking it up in a bag
I can only imagine as a treasured keepsake
Wow, the collection you must have by now.

Only a dog could have written that. I know that for a fact. We had a dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, for 14 years. We used 16,000 plastic sandwich bags in assembling our collection from the sidewalk. He also considered it an honor for us to pick it up.

Or, if it’s not coming out of a dog, it’s what going in. If there is one most favorite thing in the entire canine universe, it’s not loyalty, or companionship, or playing fetch. You know what it is:

Food
Food food food
Food food food food
Food food
Food

Who says a dog
Can’t write a love sonnet?

I Could Chew on ThisOur spaniel would eat anything. Anything. He’d leap at fireflies and Japanese beetles, loose pepperonis from a teenager’s pizza party, paper, and anything—anything—found on the floor. His favorite time of the day was dinner time—our dinner time. He’d station himself in front of the refrigerator, pretending to be asleep but actually looking for anything that might accidentally hit the floor. He had a three-second rule—if we couldn’t pick it up within three seconds, he owned it.

What he did for cats, Francesco Marciuliano has now done for dogs: I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs.  It could have been subtitled “The 14 Years of My Life Spent with Cody the Spaniel.” Marciuliano knows dogs. He must have known my dog. In this collection of poems, he thinks like a dog. I’m half-convinced he is a dog. The other half of me is convinced he’s a cat.

Dogs write poems about you going on a trip. (We had to hide the suitcases from ours, and sneak him off to the kennel so he wouldn’t realize what was happening). Dogs write poems about having anxiety attacks while you’re in the bathroom. (Ours did.) Dogs write poems about taking a bath. (After you taking a trip, baths are likely the most hated things by dogs.) Dogs write poems about stampeding to the door when the doorbell rings (Pavlov’s dog, part deux). Dogs write poems about smelling everything (everything). Dogs write poems about dog breath, and divorce, and licking, and sitting, and biting, and chewing, and going to the vet.

Dogs even write poems about meeting your date for the first time, as in “Hello”:

I’m sorry he’s out of breath
I’m sorry he’s in such distress
I’m sorry he’s in a fetal position
Sobbing on the floor
But you know if I could
I most certainly would
Give a head’s-up by yelling “CROTCH!”
Before greeting your date full-speed
at the door

Yes, Marciuliano knows dogs, and knows them well. And I’m amazed he got this group to stay calm long enough to write their poems down. But he did. And they’re wonderfully funny.

And every one is true.

Image by Helga Weber, Creative Commons, via Flickr This is a reprint of an article that originally ran at Tweetspeak Poetry.

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Literary Humor: Waiting for Godot

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Waiting for Godot comic

[on a scale from wit to whimsy: Funny]

My daughter, who has the utmost patience even for things like the appendices of Tolkien’s books, says Waiting for Godot was the most boring thing she’s tried to read (besides poor, dear Hemingway, who she says endlessly repeats himself—in which case, we are waiting for Hemingway… to get to the point).

“It might have been better as a play,” she told me about Godot.

Or it might have been better as a comic, as it turns out. I think I’ll share this post with her and set the universe back in literary balance.

Via Samuel Beckett Facebook Page

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