Monthly Archives: January 2011

Painting Worried Faces With Smiles

Posted by Tata on

It's important to stay positive but this is a negative tailor's test.

Well shit, you might think. When you know what you have to do you might as well do it. So I made an appointment with the sports doctor and told him it was time for new xrays of my right hip. Pete and I showed up early. I brought underwear and everything, but I didn’t need it. Yoga pants were fine. The tech remembered me, curious about why I needed new xrays again so soon. She rifled through files on the wall and came up with my last films, dated 2009. After that, I bickered with a physical therapist for months, started exercising nearly every day, toned up and trimmed down. Yes, I miss dancing. Still, this past autumn was hard on my hip and back and Pete was more frustrated than I was. The doctor stared at the alarming new films and did exactly what he did last time: stutter and offer me drugs. He wrote a prescription for physical therapy, so today I went to the massage therapist I’ve been seeing weekly in the same building, then skipped – hahahahahahahaha! – across the room to describe my hilarious infirmities to the facility’s director.

Take two hip flexor stretches every four hours.

You’ll be pleased to hear the doctor’s heard of a hip replacement guru in the wilds of New York City who puts broken ballet dancers back to work. Twenty grand, he says, and I can grand jeté my way to more glamorous dotage. Surgery for me is years off, but stretching in awkward directions is in my immediate future. Everything old – including me – is new again.

Well, sort of. No matter how I firm up, I’m not going to get back the body I had in my thirties when I ate crumbs and lifted weights for two hours every day. Coming to terms with that even as you’re showing off your purple metallic folding cane to the sports doc is not as simple as it sounds. I don’t know what body I have, what body I can have, what body I will have, and there are decisions to make. Well shit, you might think. Take a damn aspirin and touch your toes. I’m thinking too much, I know. A best possible future body will arrive if I just choose an amusing soundtrack and move.

One Kiss Then Another

Posted by Tata on

Look the hell out:

Almost all of the videos address processes I didn’t understand in the seventies or don’t understand now. The idea that I might – or anyone might – learn a few things piqued my interest. Last week, I looked at two of the most basic videos about number placement value. When I say basic, I mean I was looking for Muppets.

You can see why I’m so excited. On one hand, I get this and I might have understood it as a five year old. On the other, this guy covers calculus and he’s cleared a path between the two. Were I to invest the time to watch one video per day for 2011, I might finish tenth grade math by next New Year’s Day. Or: I could finish first grade math, which would still be freaking HELPFUL, since I can’t add and subtract. HEY! I COULD LEARN HOW TO ADD AND SUBTRACT.

My tiny mind is boggled.

With Sleeping On the Sidewalk

Posted by Tata on

A friend of Miss Sasha’s takes one giant step to a much better life:

Ask yourself this question: What would you do if you found $3,500? Would you save it? Buy yourself something shiny? Would you take your family on a vacation to Disney World? What would you do?

I found myself asking this very same question this morning … After I added up how much money my family has spent on fast food, take out, coffee and restaurants in the year 2010. That’s right … my family of 6, with a modest military income, spent over 13% of our net base pay on burgers, pizza and coffee. And sadly, that’s only what we spent using our bank cards and credit card – it doesn’t include the times we have used cash or when we moved back to the U.S. from our tour in Okinawa (military paid for that), all the times we used Yen (Japanese currency) to pay for Okinawan food from January until May or the 3-week long fast food fest my husband went on when he went TDY to California in November (since the military paid for his 3-times-a-day In- N-Out habit). I’d be willing to bet that our actual number is closer to $5,000 spent on junk food for 2010.

She’s given it some thought and she’s ready to test her limits:

[W]hat is this whole 365-day challenge thing all about? It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing since early November, when my husband was TDY to California, and was continually eating fast food for 3 weeks straight and kept complaining of how crappy he felt (anyone remember “SuperSize Me” by Morgan Spurlock?). I thought to myself … What if we went an entire YEAR without fast food? No quick bites at McDonald’s, no afternoon pick-me-up’s from Starbucks, not giving in to the insatiable lure of Dominos … Could we do it? Is it really possible to prepare 1,095 meals and countless snacks without relying on a drive-thru? Can we use the time spent preparing meals together as a family, teaching our children not only the value of hard work, but the inherent lesson that a family that spends time together, loves each other?

My answer: YES. We can. It is our 2011 365-Day Challenge. (Is it okay to say that I miss Starbucks already?)

I’m on a similar path, so I know how hard it is to wring the grease out of your system. Grease and high fructose corn syrup have got your number and will keep calling well after your voicemail’s full. Grease is a jealous lover and corn syrup fucks the football team. Baby, grab your wallet and RUN.

Perhaps it was cheating that I quit eating McDonald’s and Burger King eons ago, that I only stop by Wendy’s for salads, the smell of Dunkin’ Donuts makes me queasy and the founders of Domino’s hold political views I find morally repugnant. I’m not completely certain I’ve been to a Starbuck’s. These things aren’t important. I can’t agree not to go out for sushi, Jamaican, Thai, Vietnamese, deli or anything I can’t make myself. But I’m signing on, on my own terms.

1. No McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, no mass produced doughnuts. No lapses, no how.

2. No stupid, expensive coffee unless I’m on a road trip away from my own kitchen, in which case: just coffee, maybe milk, no stupid froth.

3. Dude, I’m working toward all organic, free range/grass fed, whole grain, but most weekday mornings, I eat frozen vegetable dumplings from the Asian market for breakfast. I don’t eat like other people and perfection is impossible. I am prepared to fail at the challenge and learn from failure.

Bonus: Oh. My. God. I am so excited to see people cutting themselves off from poisonous, disgusting corporate fake food and keeping their cash. I love this idea and love the idea of young mommies feeding their children real food. One note of caution: drastic change is sometimes too much and people change back. It might have been easier to buy a good coffee machine and travel mugs last August and get used to both making one’s own and the extra pocket change. Going all in like this takes guts and I admire our reasonably anonymous ringleader for taking the leap.

So whaddya say? What are you ready to try?