Thursday, March 31, 2011

Note to self: do not drink out of anything but a straw when mouth is frozen.

This morning I had a dentist appointment. To get a filling. I haven't had a filling since I was like, seven, and I lost it when I lost the tooth it filled (what dentist puts a filling in a baby tooth? I think that didn't even make sense to me when I was seven). I hadn't been to the dentist in approximately 64 years, so when I went a month ago I was expecting some bad news bears. But the good news gorillas stepped in and I only had one [small] cavity! So I decided 8 am was a great time to go get that filled.

I turned off my alarm at some point in my sleep, so I woke up at 7:21 contemplating pulling a no show. But I figured they'd charge me some sort of fee and I already don't have coverage so I dragged myself out of bed to go get needles stabbed in my mouth.

I didn't know what to expect. Pain was what I was mostly nervous for, because I sure didn't expect the giant blue rubber "dental dam" (HATE that term) that they flossed through my teeth and told me to breath through my nose (luckily I do anyway, I despise mouth breathers) because my mouth was now pried open by some sort of metal contraption and I had a blue piece of rubber...sheet?...hanging out of my mouth. Umm, isn't this supposed to be a half hour appointment? Why do I feel like I'm having major surgery and that I should be put under? So naturally, I turn up the volume on my headphones (I'm watching something on TV and I don't have cable so not only do I have no idea what's on at 8 am, but I don't have a clue as to what it is that I settled on) so I can't hear the saw he's bringing towards my mouth.

What feels like 13 seconds later he snaps the blue rubber out from between my teeth and unscrews the metal contraption and tells me to have a good day. Uhh, ok, thanks? He must have many more of these unnecessary "dental dams" to install in other mouths, he doesn't have time to chit chat about whether or not I can drink hot liquids because I'll die if I can't have coffee rightthisverysecond.

It's two hours later and my mouth feels fat and I'm concerned that when the freezing wears off that I'll be in a lot of pain from the slight obsession that's started of biting my tongue and cheek just because I can't feel it and think it's cool. I took 2 advil and dribbled water down my chin. Apparently I can't feel a water bottle on my lips. Now I feel like I have drool and water all over my face, and probably have for the past two hours, because I hadn't realized that doing such a simple thing would turn out to be impossible. I don't like having to concentrate on mindless things like eating or drinking. That might make me eat less and we all know that can't happen.

My boss anounced that I had "dental work done" to a roomful of clients. That makes it sound serious. My stroke face makes it look serious.

Monday, March 28, 2011

I will always win.

I enjoy my sleep. A lot. I don't need to sleep until 1 pm (because I'm a grandma and am usually in bed by 10 pm, due to my days starting at 5 am, of course...), but I do need a good chunk of sleep. At one time. Uninterrupted. 8 hours is ideal. I'll take 7. So when Saturday is nearing I'm practically running to my bed on Friday night because I get to "sleep in" (aka sleep uninterrupted with no reason to get up early). But then we throw the family that lives above us into the mix. It's a mom, dad, and two girls aged 3 and 5. I've never been upstairs in their part of the house, but based on their daily shenanigans I vision a bowling alley, a track, and a McDonalds Play Place in their living room. It's a fun game for them to run (and by run I mean STOMP) across the house and squeal at the top of their lungs. Over and over and over again. At 6:30 am. EVERY MORNING! I'm not a particularly patient person, but I decided to be gracious and give them every last bit of patience I possessed. Then I snapped.

About two weeks ago it was a Sunday morning at about 7ish am, and they were having a bowling tournament above us. At least it sounded like a bowling ball was dropped and something was rolling along the length of the house. So I aggressively threw back my covers, threw open my door, grabbed the broom and pounded on the ceiling. Silence. For about two hours, and then they started up again, but by that time it was an acceptable time to have a track meet, so I didn't care as much.

So this nice, little family were angels for the next two weeks, until yesterday. Again, Sunday morning, about 7:30 am, and the girls were apparently getting flying lessons from the dad. Squeals and stomping and screams and every other noise you can imagine, driftly nicely through the floor to my bedroom. And roomie's bedroom. [I should add that she's equally unimpressed, I'm not being unreasonable]. A small amount of hidden patience creeps out and I let it be. Until 2 pm when I need a nap because I'm so exhausted and they're still playing basketball with bowling balls above me. Out comes the broom again. This time was much less effective. So I plot.

8:30 pm rolls around and I still hear them stomping around (seriously, where do they get this energy from?), then 9 pm comes and it's quiet. So I turn on my music. LOUD. I place one speaker facing upwards toward the ceiling in my bedroom (aka a sleeping someone's bedroom) and leave the other in the living room. I'm practically laughing because I'm so clever. Or so I think anyway. Then there's a knock at the door.

Neighbor dad: Does the music have to be so loud?
Me: Do your children have to be so loud?
Neighbor dad: She's three...
Me: So you have no control over her?
Neighbor dad: She has 90% hearing loss...
Me: So do I. It makes me talk louder, not walk harder.
Neighbor dad: (running out of excuses for his out of control child) I've already apologized.
Me: It was a SUNDAY morning, you have to respect the people that live below you!

(Is it unreasonable for me to suggest to him to let his children run around outside screaming? It wasn't raining...Or take them to the park and let them run around like puppies so they fall asleep? Or put a movie on for them since it IS 7 am on a SUNDAY MORNING?)

Neighbor dad: (starts walking away and mutters) This is f***ing ridiculous!

I turned down the music a little bit. Enough that it wasn't annoying me, but not too much that they couldn't still hear it. But only for another 5 minutes because I started to get anxious about my paused Gilmore Girls episode that I had seen 13 times before, but couldn't handle not watching at that moment.

I was in bed by 10 pm.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

I wish I knew my neighbourhood.

It was a beautiful evening yesterday and I was home before it got dark, so I had no excuse to put off going for a run. I figured I had driven in the general area of my neighbourhood enough times that I knew the streets and the looks of the roads enough that I could map out a run-route in my head and be okay. I was mistaken.

It all started out well, just jogging down the street until I came up to a side street and decided to turn down it. Blasting my music and not paying attention led me to turn down a street that was actually a San Francisco-style street that was completely vertical. But I was too proud to turn around and try the next street, so up the enormous I climb. Slash LUNGE up. Yes, I felt that I was good enough to lunge up this hill. I wasn't, and my legs are paying for it today. It was the longest lunge-walk of my life. Neverending, if you will. I could see the top, but it wasn't getting any closer.

Finally the top. And a street that I knew! Bonus. So off I go jogging down the familiar street, thinking that since I just climbed Mount Everest to get here, one of the next side streets MUST go downhill, directly to my front door. No such luck. I turned down another side street that did go downhill, but curved around to the opposite direction of where I needed to be going. Still convinced that I'm going to recognize SOMETHING that looks familiar (because I'm currently jogging on a street I've never been on in my life), I keep going. Until it gets dusky. Great, now I need to be home soon so I don't get mugged, and I have no idea where I am. Too embarassed to just turn around and head in the direction I came from, I do the following:

Cross the street to a cul-de-sac, run the perimeter of said cul-de-sac (as though it was my plan all along), cross the street back to the side I came from, and start running in the direction I came from, which is now uphill again.

It was comforting knowing that I at least knew where I was going this time, but as I come back to the top of Mount Everest I can't even walk down it because it's so steep. So I end up practically running down it anyway. I reach the bottom of the hill and 10 minutes later I return home, as it's almost dark out. I'm safe like that.

I barely had the front door closed and I beelined to the kitchen to devour 36 4 cookie dough truffles. The run made that okay.

Monday, March 14, 2011

"Working out" has a different meaning for everyone.

It might be vain of me, but I like to look...decent, when I'm at the gym. Makeup, I don't care about. Hair, I don't care about. Even shaved legs, I don't care about. But I will admit that I've fallen victim to the lululemon fad (might I add here, though, that I had lulu pants before ANYONE I know did (or knew at the time, because it was THAT long ago)). I have my lulu capri's, my lulu tank, and my lulu headband (but I don't care about my hair so that one doesn't count). And really, I look like anybody else working out at the gym. Except the girl that showed up in her KFC uniform...

Yes, she walked in, handed in her membership card, and hopped right on a treadmill, IN HER UNIFORM. I stared. A lot. I thought maybe I must have been in a cardio-infused, hallucinatory mindset. Ok, no. She is really in her uniform. Maybe the gym paid her to come in smelling like deep fry to taunt all the members. Deep fry and sweat...you couldn't pay me enough. Well maybe for deep fry.

Ok, so she doesn't care about her gym appearance, I'm not judging. Very much. But then, as I'm driving down the road today, I see a sidewalk jogger. I'm supes jealsy because I LOVE running outside. Maybe not on the main street of the city, but outside compared to on a treadmill is most definitely preferred. And this is what he's wearing: a collared polo t-shirt, board shorts, and socks pulled up to his knees. None of that screams "I work out on a regular basis" to me. It more screams, "I felt the need to go for a jog rightthisminute, and grabbed the first thing I saw" (or maybe didn't see, in his case). So he runs on the main street, in that attire, for ALL to see, nbd.

But then there was this treat:

A guy in what I would consider "proper" workout attire (I am an expert, after all), sprinting in a circle around the perimeter of the parking lot of the mini mall. SPRINTING. Maybe he was running from someone, but I watched, and no one was coming after him. Maybe in his head they were? It's difficult to say.

Oh, and let's not forget the girl in one of my circuit classes that during the 45 seconds of whatever weight machine one was on, she was texting and dangling her legs over the machine as though she was sitting on a bridge, over a pond, on a hot summer day, with her sandals seated beside her, basking in the warm sun. To boot, she was 16 pounds, soaking wet, so maybe she didn't have the strength to be lifting any weight with her legs? Her thumbs were getting quite the workout though.

I guess the moral of my bizarre fitness observations is that everyone exercises in their own way (and don't get me wrong, good for them! At least they're getting out there and getting fit...kind of...that's more than I could have said a few months ago), albeit, it's not in any way I would consider exercising, but I guess that just makes me a giant lululemon-wearing, gym-going snob. With greasy hair and unshaved legs. Gotta love me.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

I don't know life without food.

Look at that. Another post about food. I can't decide if my recent food posts are due to me not consuming, on a majorly regular basis, the foods I adore to the moon and back (ahem, bacon), or if it's due to how I've spent the past 3 days reading a newly discovered blog about food.

Let's start with the blog I found. I pretty regularly stalk people on Facebook, and one of my friends had a link for this recipe for stuffed peppers. I actually despise stuffed peppers, but these sounded good, and I'm in a rut of boredom of the food choices I have (re: lifestyle change), so I clicked the link. It led me to the web-meeting of my kindred spirit. Please read her blog:

http://www.howsweeteats.com

I've literally spent the past three days reading it. I've gotten through one full month of her archive, because she posts sometimes multiple times a day. She's better than me. Here's a recap of who she is:

She loves bacon.
She loves cheese.
She's created recipes based on cake batter-flavor.
She adores her family.
She loves pink.
She's me.

If it wasn't considered creepy to stalk her so I could meet her, I would. I'm convinced we're destined to be the best of friends.

I've eaten the same 5 meals/snacks everyday for the past 5 weeks or so. Needless to say, I'm bored and can feel myself slipping. So I needed some inspiration, and this new bff of mine gave it to me. First recipe I come across: cilantro lime white bean hummus (found here). The health lights are going off. I make it. I don't generally like hummus. It's texture isn't my favorite and I always feel like no matter now much garlic or other high-flavor additives you put in it, it always tastes bland. So I modified this recipe to my own tastes (ie: added 65 cloves of garlic, 10 cups of cilantro, half a jalapeno pepper, etc.). I still hated it. Big, wasteful fail. But I wasn't about to give up on our newfound friendship quite yet. But only because she has approximately 16 recipes for nachos. See? Kindred spirits.

I settle on making my usual, as of late, salad with my homemade croutons, some spicy chicken, and loaded with veggies and mixed greens, for my lunch the next day. Upon opening my container to eat it in class my prof comes up to me and says, and I quote, "You know, I've been in restaurants that haven't smelled as good as whatever it is you're eating here." I'm obviously a chef.

So this weekend I'm rewarding my superior culinary skills by making chocolate chip cookie dough stuffed cinnamon rolls (check it out), the recipe given to me by my new best friend. If you never hear from me again it's because I have either succumbed to extreme gluttony, or it's because I've been jailed for killing the girl in my class with three inches of cream cheese on her bagel. Why isn't it a rule that those kinds of foods should not be allowed within a 3 foot radius of my existence?

Monday, March 7, 2011

A rearview mirror is a beautiful thing.

A few months ago I was driving down the street just enjoying whatever, thinking about whatever, in la-la land as I normally am while driving, when all of a sudden my rearview mirror falls off. Just falls off. The first thing I do, of course, is check my rearview mirror to see if the person behind me saw it happen. Oh right, IT'S NOT THERE. Let me tell you, a car looks mighty naked with no rearview mirror attached to the windshield. I wasn't that far from home, but I had to, at some point in the very near future, re-attach it to my window. Having no rearview mirror is a fantastic time to run errands looking for glue to glue it back on. I almost didn't look at the road even once on my way to Wal-Mart because my spider windshield crack looked worse with no mirror to hide the worst part of it. So I was extra sure that this was when my windshield was going to have had enough and just collapse into my lap. I made it to Wal-Mart and found the glue.

Reversing out of a parking stall with no rearview mirror is a tricky task. By the time I got back to my car I had already forgotten why I was even at Wal-Mart, so when I got into my car and started to head home it was a surprise to see, well, nothing, when I went to reverse. I hated my life so much at that point.

In the end I successfully glued my mirror back in place, with minimal nervousness about how the window was actually bending as I held the mirror in place waiting for the glue to set. Too much pressure? Maybe. But if it meant the mirror may not stay in place I thought maybe it was ok.

To date I have noticed my rearview mirror shifted into different positions a handful of times. Maybe ghosts. Maybe funny passengers. I'm not sure. Today, however, I had to slam on my brakes at one point while driving because a minivan didn't know how to change lanes (a signal is an excellent way to start...then doing a shoulder check is another fantastic thing to do before moving your vehicle into the side of mine). As soon as I recover from my minor heart attack, I notice that my rearview mirror is in a different position. *Lightbulb goes on* My erratic driving is what's causing my shifty mirror! Good. There's no ghosts. That's the moral I got out of it anyway, not that I should maybe simmer on my brake slamming.

I'm still waiting for the day I arrive at my destination with a lapful of glass. And tears streaming down my face.