no wonder marines are so cranky

last night was another fabulous new experience at the y, & that is not at all meant with the dripping sarcasm that one may intuit, honest injun! so jenn & i finally attended the famed boot camp class led by the intimidating holly. honestly, holly is one of those women that is beautiful, fit, & looks like she could totally kick your arse from one side of the planet to the other & barely break a sweat. she's definitely not someone i would want to cross. incidentally, jenn & i first met holly in the kick box d'oh class, she was a co-instructor one night. after class she told us we should come & see her at boot camp class. jenn immediately said "will do" & looked too peppy for someone who had just finished kick boxing class, & my response was "yeah, i'll work on that" meanwhile shooting jenn the you are mother frickin crazy daggers with my eyes.



well, oddly enough, i was the one that pushed jenn to go to the class last night with me. i think i just heard a thud, someone must have passed out from shock. well, they'll rejoin us again very soon. typically jenn is the one that takes me kicking & screaming, almost literally, to the classes (like body pump & kick box d'oh) but, for some strange reason, last night i was feeling particularly energetic & i told her that we should take the class. that was after we did some laps around the track, about a mile and a third, the last half of it we alternated between walking a lap & then jogging a lap. don't worry, i won't break my arm patting myself on the back, BUT, i am pretty flippin pleased with myself that not only did i make myself go to boot camp, but i got jenn to go along with me.



now, i will admit, i was having some serious shooting pain in my left ankle & my right hip was twinging a bit after the jogging, but there was something inside me that said i just had to go to boot camp last night, it was like a life or death pinnacle moment for me. usually i can't tell those pivotal moments in my life until they're in the past, the ones on which an entire future turn, but i know that last night was one of those moments, & going to that class would be, IS, the event that changes everything. i can't see what it is changing for me, but i know it is. to quote a song miss jenn & i listened to last night during our mc-crack fix: "the past is just the future with the lights on." btw, i /heart that line & i think it's really a motto to live by. it's deep man, super deep.



i'm not even going to pretend that boot camp was a cake walk. mmmm, cake. but, i'm also not going to say that it was impossible, because it wasn't! it was a challenge. since neither of us had been to the class we didn't know all of the moves. & our bodies are still not at the michelle kwan flexibility stage yet, but they're getting there. so one move, the garbage picker, neither of us did very successfully. basically you start a couple feet away from a stepper, you hop in, put your hands on it, hop just your feet back keeping your hands on the step, do two push ups, then hop your feet forward & stand up. yeah. i know. read it a second time. my reaction when holly showed it to us was: WHAT?!



&, at one point, mentally, i did pull out the "homey don't bend that way." much like last week at power down, holly very calmly said (while everyone was sitting on their step): "put your right ankle up on your left knee, ok, now put your hands behind you on the step, & slide yourself forward off the step, feel that wonderful glute & hamstring stretch." now, to my credit, i held in the snorted laugh that i was tempted to let loose, but i did give her my patented homey-don't-bend-that-way-look. & i did do my best regardless. i crossed my ankle over my left leg, i leaned back, & i scooted my butt forward as far as i could. i knew that if i moved my butt off that step that i would proceed to fall & crack my head on the studio floor. which is bad for business. interestingly enough, the staff at the Y don't like their members passed out & bleeding all over their floor. i know, how rude.



once again, this is a class that i would like to attend again. the big down fall of boot camp is that on tuesdays it is from 5:30pm-6:35pm & the power down class i like is on tuesdays from 6:00pm-6:40pm. yeah, that makes me a bit of a sad panda :( there is a yoga class after boot camp called power yoga, so once i feel a little less awkward from boot camp i'll have to try that also. luckily, boot camp is offered twice a week, so i could always drag my butt the 25 miles from my apartment to minnetonka to go to that some morning with the fabulous miss jenn.

boot camp did live up to its name, definitely! today i am one hurting unit. interestingly enough i have found glute/thigh muscles i didn't know exist. & my chest is hurting in ways it never has before, all of which is very good. if your local Y has a boot camp, i highly recommend it. holly was great about pushing everyone in class (we even got an extra set of running steps because no one told her their glutes were hurting. . .i won't make that mistake twice!), but she was also great about showing everyone adaptations of some of the tougher exercises so that those of us who aren't yet able to do all of the exercises, could keep pushing along. she also came up to jenn & i at the end of class & made a point of telling us that we did a really good job for our first time at boot camp *beaming*

with that said, boot camp gets an over all grade of an A from me. a really great workout, i can feel it the next day, but also very adaptable for different skill levels, & not nearly as intimidating as it sounds.

exercise: my favoritist drug of all

ok, maybe not my FAVORITIST of all time, because i'm a pretty big fan of caffeine. & the mccrack cone at the golden arches. but it's definitely a very close runner up. as my blog from yesterday indicates fairly well, to those good at reading between the lines, i was in a wee bit of a blue mood. not necessarily related to any one thing in particular, just kind of a compilation of a bunch of little things that when taken as a whole were a hard pill to swallow.

 

but, last night, i wound up at the Y with miss jenn. & the sadistic chick made me do an hour on the elliptical. ok, well, she didn't hold a gun to my head or anything, but she was doing an hour & since we were working out together i also felt compelled to clock an hour. & then every time i felt myself starting to get lazy & ease off on my pace or intensity i felt her glance my way, even though i didn't catch her in the act & so then i put my head down, gritted my teeth, & pushed harder.

 

now while i was at the Y glistening like a pig i wasn't all warm & fuzzy about the exercise schtick. i was kinda wishing i was lounging in a recliner curled up with my lappy cruising random websites & watching bad tv, yes yes, i really DO know how to live it up. yo.

 

but post workout, after i was able to shower & get into fresh clothes, i felt a lot better. i won't lie & say that i felt a million times better & like clicking my heels together for joy, but i felt more presentable, more put together, more relaxed, & just better able to cope in the big bad world. isn't that amazing?

 

yeah, i think i've come to this same conclusion in a previous blog. er, several previous blogs perhaps? i will say that with the impressive amount of random bullshit that i can memorize & store for years i find it incredibly amazing that i continually forget uber important things about myself. like, that i actually enjoy working out & it makes me feel loads better. or that writing keeps me sane & balanced (ok, once again, won't lie, as balanced as i ever am, but that's still pretty balanced, sorta). selective memory? too bad you can't clean out your brain like the memory on a computer. if i could there are several memories that i would like to rid myself of. including the embarrassing moment back in high school when i was blithely walking along, minding my own business, miserable in my own teenage awkwardness when i did a full on slip on the ice, my feet came out from underneath me, ass over teakettle to quote my dad, & i landed hard on my tail bone. yeah, that's one i could do without. & if that's what i share with people on a blog you can imagine what i have hidden in my grey matter. oy.

 

so, guess this means when i get off work i should head to the Y right? & that i'm all excited & uber motivated to get there & sweat out all those negative feelings that may be lingering & the tension & stress of a tuesday in a call center? yeah, not so much. while i know that it will make me feel better, i'm not super jazzed at this moment to head over to the gym. i know i'll go. i know i'll feel better when it's all said & done, especially post shower when i'm in my jammie-jams curled up with my lappy & able to say "yes, yes i did work out today."

 

then again, a habit doesn't become one over night, it takes time, takes perseverance, hard work & a few slips. i've had quite a few of the last as of late. & by slips i mean things ala my above story from my high school gory days. but i'm really trying to get back my gym-jo. if for no other reason than #1 it's fun to say gym-jo & #2 there are some cute weight lifting boys at the Y that i wouldn't mind ogling.

you really can't take me anywhere

week before last, thursday to be exact, jenn & i had hit the Y to try to get back into the tuesday/thursday girl swing of things. which basically means actually going to the gym four or more days a week, eating healthy, & lifting weights. ya know, the TTG* way of life. our gym return was less than triumphant. we did some upper body stuff, some time on the ellipticals & then we were done. so over the Y for the night. this was post the mean boys at the gym, but we were still trying.



i was getting ready to drive jenn home & offered her some crack, er, mcdonald's ice cream. we have developed this VERY bad habbit of going to mcdonald's for one of their ice cream cones. per jenn they are about 150 calories per cone if made according to the corporate specifications. & now it's almost kind of like pavlov's dogs: i leave the Y & i want a mcdonald's ice cream. i can even tell you how much two cones cost, with tax, at the plymouth mickey d's. $2.13.



but me & my crack, er, cone habit, are not the point of the story. the point is the absurd things that happen when i'm allowed to go out in public. so jenn wanted to get a salad when we went to mcdonald's because she didn't have anything to eat at home, er, nothing that was semi healthy. which, depending on the dressing one chooses, the mcdonald's salads are not terribly bad for human consumption.



so we roll through the drive through & order two ice cream cones & a salad, their new south western salad or whatever it's called. so we get to the drive through window, & we're in my saturn so we're riding pretty low to the ground. the guy hands us jenn's salad, then the two cones & goes away. jenn checks the salad & they gave her whatever the dressing is that matches up with that salad, & it had about a billion calories in the package. & she wanted a low fat dressing. so she & i both turn to our left & stare up into the drive through window. & we sit. & we stare. finally the guy turns around, looks startled, & then comes over to the window.

"uh, can i help you?" the mcdonald's dude asked.
"yeah, do you have any light or low fat dressing?" i asked while taking a lick of my ice cream cone.
"yeah we have a balsamic vinaigrette and, uh, yeah, that's it," obviously confused & disjointed.
"can we have the vinaigrette?" i flashed my dimples.
"one minute." he disappeared momentarily, the drive through window snapping shut.
as soon as his back was turned and the window shut, jenn pipes up, "yes, yes i did just order ice cream & i'm asking for light dressing with my salad."

if my life were a movie jenn would have actually said her comment to the drive through dude, as it was, she just said it to me, but it was still pretty hilarious none the less.

*tuesday/thursday girl AKA TTG is my own creation, don't swipe it or i'll beat you severely with wet spaghetti noodles. & trust me, if anyone knows how to inflict pain with pasta it's a fat girl