Focus, schmocuss and no nude scenes

Hello my darlings,

After hearing truly terrifying news about a dear friends fight for her life I realize how silly it is for me to whine and feel sorry for myself about my stupid foot, so this week I decided I would focus on what I CAN do rather than what I can't.    You will all be pleased to know that my first step on this quest was once again Google.  (don't worry this time it wasn't a quiz, so I only assume I'm still bossy and domineering, I don't actually have anything that confirmed that this time).

To start this journey I decided to search for post-surgery workout suggestions.  Apparently people recovering from hernia surgery are most concerned about post-surgery workouts, followed closely by knee surgeries and finally shoulder.  I opted to follow my knee surgery searchers, since it was the closest body part.  I have admit it was a little surprised to see that minimizing the look of the scar was such a hot topic, but after my previous trauma with the c-section scar I wasn't adventurous enough to delve too deeply into that. I decided to take a safe route and start with an article from Runner's World, but that was very knee specific, so I kept clicking around and found a blog link for a woman that claims to be mid-40's and trying to get back into shape after 3 kids and 2 knee surgeries.  Unfortunately, I think she's going to be chubby for a long time because it was pretty much nothing more than exercise-related inspirational quotes from Pinterest and tips on how to make your favorite recipes low-fat.

SIDEBAR: this bitch suggested using fat-free milk and canned spray cheese for macaroni and cheese.  WTF?  Here's my tip, you don't eat macaroni and cheese when you are trying to lose weight.  You eat macaroni and cheese as a splurge on a very rare occasion and when you do you load it with every decedent, unctuous, full-fat dairy item you can get your chubby little mitts on then you savor every bite of it.  After my glorious Truffle Mac & Cheese dinner I assure you that I and my chubby little mitts and my happy butt are all absolutely right about this one!

I'm about to abandon this whole thing when I see a comment about the "focus workout method". By now I'm sure you are all fully aware that I have the attention span of a gnat, so "focus" isn't going to be a thing that I do, but I couldn't resist the urge to see what nonsense this would include, so I took the plunge.  Mostly, it was breathing and meditation tips, which I ignored, because fortunately breathing is an automatic response and meditation is well, did you see what she was wearing, oh crap I forgot to swap the laundry, I need to remember take out the trash, ugh, I have to deal with that crap at work tomorrow and I forgot to schedule that meeting and....... Pretty much that's what "quieting my mind" sounds like.  There was one heading, however, that did catch my eye "Focus your workout around preparing for your nude scenes!"   Hmmmm working out in the dark?  Doesn't seem very safe to me.  Rest assured, if I am "preparing for my nude scenes" this needs to be very low-light (read PITCH BLACK) and I can't imagine how I am supposed to apply this to my workout.  Somehow, I don't think running through the gym, turning off lights while shouting "I'm preparing for my nudes scenes" is actually going to net me any results, aside from being banned from the gym for life!  (I have to admit I would get quite a chuckle at watching the meatheads in the back cry in their steroid-laden, protein drinks at the thought of the fat chick doing nude scenes.)   Apparently, some study says that if you focus all of your energy and your mind on specific movements you can get dramatically better results and as a testament to this Kim Catrell claims to have used this while filming Sex in the City.  Pffftt, I have two words for Ms. Catrell.  BODY DOUBLE, bitch!  Ok, so I guess I have three-words for her.   😃

I realize at this point that I am not prepared for the amount of focus required to prepare this happy butt for nude scenes, so I think I will stick to what I know, which at this point is a spin bike (which I am only allowed to ride like a granny bike) and whatever workout I can do with minimal engagement of my lower extremities.  Apparently, you can elevate your heart rate while sitting in a chair and pretending to conduct an orchestra, but since I do not wear adult diapers and I have a rule about not intentionally looking like a jackass I am not going to test that theory.  Instead I signed-up for a 100-day push-up challenge.  I can't actually participate in the challenge portion because this is a group of CrossFit nuts that are doing weighted push-ups and one-arm push-ups and with my lame appendage I can only do knee push-ups (I did make an attempt to go up onto my toes, but my Achilles is nowhere close to being capable of that) but I am now doing 100 push-ups a day for 100 days, ok for 99 more days now.

Until next time...
XOXO

The dragon, the witch and the paper fairy

Greetings my lovely darlings,
 

As of Thursday, "The Dragon" (also known as hairball, hair-club for men  and many other "endearing" titles) is a manager.  Not my manager, I am fairly certain that would not have lasted long, but the manager of PeopleSoft Administration and Security.  For those of you are aren't familiar with the rants about this guy, he was a contractor that worked at CPS last fall and lucky for me he sat at a table by the entrance to my cubicle, so I've reported LOTS of coffee experiences about him over the months.  Just to bring you all up to speed, Sir Draonista is in his mid-50's, with very long, very nappy hair, an incredibly eclectic sense of taste (he likes to read sci-fi / romance novels - I swear my life was better before I ever heard that genre existed) and long, pointy finger nails, including and especially one extremely long nail on his pinky finger.  Needless to say he and I don't have much in common and I find avoiding him when possible is the most effective strategy for dealing with him.  He's an interesting character (you know how "interesting" is never really used in a good-context, well, there's a reason I call him interesting).   

This morning when he arrives at work he has a pale pink, very wrinkled (possibly slept in) polo shirt, with a giant stain just to the right of the pocket.  I know we've all had the unfortunate coffee spill or breakfast sandwich faux pas and had to walk around all day with a spot on our shirt, but this didn't look like a spot, nope it looked like a baked-in, nasty grease stain.   I can overlook the stain (OK, I suppose theoretically I could overlook the stain, but clearly I didn't) but then he turned his back to me and flicked his nappy-ass wet hair revealing that the entire back of his shirt was drenched (presumably from wet hair, but I am not getting close enough to examine) and that's not even the worst part.  When he flicked his hair the elastic hair tie that was holding the ponytail where he'd pulled the sides of his hair back broke and landed on the floor beside my desk.  I was not about to touch it, but unfortunately not touching it would mean that he would be getting very close to me and if he bent over that hair would likely fall toward me.... I was momentarily paralyzed, but before he even took a step toward the broken elastic at my feet he began undoing his belt!  WTF!  I am literally trapped in a corner with a freakshow unbuckling his belt! (OMG Alex, I immediately thought of you and all of your HR experiences of late worried that I might be having my own HR encounter very soon.) Luckily he was just retrieving a spare elastic hair tie that he keeps on his belt buckle.  Whew!  WTF, but whew!

At this point I faked a cough, grabbed a kleenex and picked up the hair tie with that.  Crisis averted!  

He then spent the next ten minutes telling the guy in front of me (one of the poor suckers that now reports to him) that he finally moved into his new house.  He closed on a brand new house on July 30 and on August 9 had the storage box delivered and hired movers to unpack it.  He moved to Colorado from New York in June in a U-Haul, hired movers to unload the U-Haul into a storage container, then had the container delivered and movers unpack it.  Seems inefficient, but I get why he would it could be necessary, but when the guy he was talking with asked if he's now in the house he said no, he decided to pay for one more week in the Residence Inn because he needs to get cable at his house.  Right, cable, of course.  Oh well, not my life not my problem.  

It was an "interesting" morning with the dragon, (I am officially traumatized by the idea of a man unbuckling his belt) but then I got an afternoon of Ms. Shay.....

Once again I am in a FitBit workweek step challenge, so I felt compelled to go for a long walk for lunch.  I walked around the lake directly beside my building, but when I got to the other side it was so nice that I decided to keep going and walk around the other lake as well.  If I just walk around one lake it is 2.7 miles, walking around both lakes is almost 4 miles.  Apparently, even at five-month post surgery four consecutive miles is a little too much, so when I got back to my desk I was sweaty and tired and limping.  Someone noticed the limp and I responded by making a comment about my stupid gimp foot.  At this point Shay steps out from her desk and asks me if I realize that "gimp" is a derogatory word and she really wishes I wouldn't say that.  Seriously, it's ME talking about MY FOOT, I know that it's derogatory, but it's MY FOOT and the derogatory comment came from MY mouth.  I ignored the comment, but made a mental note to not say gimp around her again, I really do not need an HR moment over that nonsense.  

Shay sits just over the wall from me, so we can clearly both hear everything the other says which means I get to hear her talking on her cell phone all day long.  She's usually talking to her cousins or her sons in Houston and frequently these days she's talking about FEMA because her house in Houston flooded in May, but she hadn't gotten all of the clean up done from when it flooded in 2008, so now there is an ongoing saga about the claim and what is new damage versus what is old damage.  I kid you not these conversations typically sound like some sort of crazy-ass drama on BET and every time I hear her on the phone I am reminded that sometimes stereotypes ARE a real time-saver.....

Fortunately, or possibly unfortunately, the most recent BET saga was interrupted when someone had the audacity to ask who was printing a 397-page PDF document.  Shay proudly said that it is for her class next week.  He looked directly at her and said "it's a PDF file.  You realize you don't have to print it, right?" 

It was all I could do to suppress my laughter, but a few minutes later Shay was at my desk fuming because the printer ran out of paper and she didn't realize, so someone (she is sure it was probably the guy who asked if she knew she didn't have to print it, because clearly she IS printing is so she wanted it printed) took her job off the printer when he added paper and now the pages are out of order, so she has to print it again.  I asked her if the pages weren't numbered and that's when she declared that she didn't have time to sort though all of those pages, so she was just going to reprint it and stand over the printer to make sure no one messed with it.  Seriously, you don't have time to arrange numbered pages in order, but you DO have time to stand at the printer while you reprint a 397-page PDF file. (Please note this woman has a college degree from the University of Houston, but is unable to re-order numbered pages.  Do you see why I make so many jokes about Texas and Texans?)  You will be proud to know that I didn't say a word!  

Now she is back at her desk with a handheld single hole-punch (because she couldn't find the 3-hole punch that is in a drawer by the copier) making holes, so she can put it into a binder.   There is a full case of three-hole punched paper sitting right beside the printer!  I'm not telling her!  I figure if she didn't have time to arrange the numbered pages (damn you counting is so hard) but she did have time to stand by the printer while she reprinted it (fairly certain I could have done all that pesky counting in half the time) then I most certainly don't have the time, the energy or the patience to try to explain to her how to select a different drawer on the printer, so she can print the damn thing for a third time.  

Until next time...

XOXO

Happy Butts

I'm feeling a little sassy today and well, when this happens I like to spread the love, so to speak.  It's been a crazy work week already (yesterday I worked 16 hours) and generally felt dejected when I went to bed, but this morning I woke up with a new lease on life, spent 40 minutes on the spin bike, did 75 minutes of PT then came in the office a conquered a situation that has been wearing on me for months.  Now you might think this whole thing is going to be sunshine and roses, but you've all met me, so.........

Work is silly - it's really not a big deal, lots of corporate politics and posturing, but really nothing worth talking about.  No no, rather than whining about my job where they are paying me quite a lot of money to do a busy work I am going to instead chose to rant about skinny people, fat-shaming.  OK, so that might be a little harsh, but I did come perilously close to demonstrating a roundhouse kick to the kidney as a result of a 22-year-old's lament about cellulite.  

One of the contract project managers I work with (we will call her Ms. M) is also a Zumba and RIPPED (that's a class not a reference to her body) instructor, so when she sees me come into the office from PT wearing workout clothes we naturally stop and chat about workouts, my progress and when I can join her classes (November, for the hundredth time the answer is still f*ing November) and that's when the cute little 22-year old intern joins the conversation and asks Ms. M if Zumba would help her get rid of her cellulite.  Since Ms. M is actually a nice human being, so she engages this comment by saying "oh, you're so young and cute where could you possibly have any cellulite"  (Lucky for all of us I didn't respond in my out loud voice "BITCH please you don't even know what cellulite is!")  Perky little intern says that she has "dimples on her butt."  At this point, I couldn't refrain any longer and I said (in my out loud voice) "HA! Dimples on your butt!  I have lots of those, that's just my butt smiling because it's really happy to see you"   

Blank stare.......

Pretty sure that intern will never discuss cellulite within 50-miles of me again.  

Ms. M stopped by a few minutes later to give me a high-five.

Finally, this morning I received an email with this headline.....

Why Your Morning Coffee Could Be Making You FAT....

I am going to assume that none of you received this email, but just in case you are hearing this nonsense I wanted to assure you that "My morning coffee" is NOT making you fat.  Unfortunately, I cannot attest for anything you are ingesting, but I wanted to assure you that MY morning coffee is good for you, very good.  I might even (I would, I so totally would) say that MY coffee is a veritable fountain of youth.  You're Welcome!   teehe

Until next time

XOXO

Tit for Tat Scars

Hello my darlings,

I am currently sitting on a two-hour webinar about goal-setting and performance management.  I'm pretty sure I've heard all of this material at least 85 times prior, but this is a mandatory meeting and apparently at the end they give you a special "instruction" that you only know about if you attend the meeting, so I have to endure the whole thing to get credit for attending.  Yeah - employing juvenile techniques to mandate compliance, this might be my new most favorite thing in Corporate America.  Since I am stuck doing this and since I had something truly terrifying to share with all of you I thought I would use this time to rant, vent and whine to all of you.  Looks like we are all LUCKY today!  teeheee

As I am now transitioning between my boot and a shoe with an ankle brace people are suddenly very interested in seeing my scar.  I've worn a sandal with my boot, so I've been able to show people the totally healed version on my left foot and just say that's pretty much what the scar is going to look like. The questions about scars are annoying, but generally innocuous. I basically think we all have scars in one form or another, so looking at someone else scar is just not a thing that fascinates me.  Interestingly enough though I find that much of the time people start this conversation as a segue to show-off some old wounds.  It becomes some sort of some tit for tat scar one-ups-manship.  Unfortunately, once in a while there is someone feels it's necessary to take it one step farther. 

This morning after an unfortunate (and very painful) misstep (see PS below for more about that) while wearing my shoe, I decided to put the boot on to walk the third of a mile between buildings in the rain. Now, I'm back in my building on this nonsensical conference call, so I decided to take my boot off again, that's when Ms. Shay (her real name is Sharlana, but she goes by Shay) stopped by my desk.  Shay is our new PeopleSoft admin that started here just over a month ago.  She relocated from Houston and is trying to get acclimated to Colorado (and attempting to learn to navigate roundabouts, but that's a whole 'nother coffee)  For the last two weeks I've been asking Shay to compare developer permissions between the current environment and a snapshot of the old environment because of an issue that was raised TWO WEEKS ago.  This morning she finally got back to me with a list of users that are different between the two systems.  Um, yeah... Soooo, uh thanks, not what I asked for.  It's raining, its Tuesday and frankly I am not in the mood to deal with it today, so I just said that we probably don't need to worry about it.  The developers aren't screaming that they can't work and what the hell they are developers in a development environment, do I really need to worry about permissions there.  Case closed, right?  

OMG, I wish the story ended here.  Lucky for me at this point in the conversation Shay notices that I don't have my boot on and asks me if I am putting any cream on my foot.  WTF?  Why are you so interested in my damn foot?  I know she's just trying to be nice, but I really and truly am NOT IN THE MOOD for this conversation, but I am trying to be polite and nice (FWIW I SUCK at it and it doesn't feel right, so I am not planning to make a habit of this) so I ask her what she means about cream.  She has a bad knee and a bad hip and back problems (my inside voice is saying, yep weighing 300 pounds will do that to you, but my outside voice says nothing ((Chalk one up for discretion and actually having an inside voice -- WOOT WOOT!)) so she uses a menthol cream to help with the pain.  In the most polite voice I can muster (about an 8 on the bitch-o-meter scale) I reiterated that I am really not in much pain (I'm sort of lying because of my "misstep" but I'm NOT telling her about that.)  She then begins telling me about some condition that African Americans get that causes scars to be really pronounced.  Newsflash, I'm not black - HELL, I'm not even remotely tan right now.  However, Ms.Shay IS black and at this point in the conversation she steps closer to me, (read, OMG total violation of personal space) so she is mostly hidden by the cubicle wall in front of my desk (apparently that's her version of discretion, which I take as a sign that the whole developing-my-inner-voice thing was a BAD idea.) and before I can even question what she's doing she lifts her shirt to show me her C-Section scars.  YEP!  Those babies sure are pronounced!  

AAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  I'm not going to give you any details, other than to say I am now TERRIFIED of railroad tracks and I think I am going to drink BLEACH for lunch.   

Until next time.....

XOXO

PS -- By the time I get around to writing another one of these I will have forgotten about the pain (unless I did something really damaging which I think is pretty unlikely) from my "misstep" so you can consider this bonus material..... 

When I got to work it was pouring rain and even though I have a temporary handicapped parking tag, so I could very easily have parked ten feet from the door in one of the five gimp spaces that are only used by Jimmie Johns delivery people, my dumb ass decided this would be a good time to get a few extras steps.  (Damn you FitBit!)  In order to get those 50-75 extra steps I parked further out in the parking lot and with the rain that was falling and the puddles around the parking lot I didn't notice a pothole.  In case you did already know this, anytime your heel drops below the ball of your foot that is ALL Achilles tendon.  Word to the wise (FAIL) If you've had your Achilles detached and repaired in the last couple of months or so you probably (read, Holy Mother of you don't even understand how painful that was) don't want to do that.  As a result of this incident I dropped my lunch on the ground, but I didn't collapse and I didn't pee my pants from the pain, so I guess overall it could have been worse.    

I wonder who I should sue first, Fitbit for making me want to be all steppy or the property management company for not notifying me that there was a pothole.  I mean seriously, just because it's spring and there are potholes everywhere shouldn't they really be thinking of me and my gimp-foot and my stupid FitBit enticing me to get those extra steps.  Seriously, DAMN YOU FITBIT!  

10 things women really want to hear

Hello darlings,

We had an office breakfast this morning which gave me an opportunity to talk with some people that I don't interact with on a regular basis including a sweet little Indian gentleman who is very excited to be returning home for his arranged wedding in March.  I am probably (read absolutely, beyond the shadow of doubt) too jaded to give advice to any soon-to-be-newlywed, so I tried remain positive (aka sit there and say next to nothing), but when he talked about the "India Times" article that he read about women I nearly lost it.  Apparently, these are "10 Things women simply love to hear"   You all know that I can't let a good list go without a little "color commentary" so here are my responses to these 10 things.  

FWIW - there are even a few (OK two) of them I actually agree with.....

'You look gorgeous!'

This one is somewhat situational.  Though I don't think anyone has ever called me "gorgeous" there are situations where I could certainly appreciate hearing that or any similar compliment.  That said there are also many more situations (read MOST) where this statement would raise eyebrows (JADED!) but my typical responses to this would be:

What did you do?

How much did it cost?

Not now I have a headache/in- grown toenail/foot fungus/any-number of other excuses that pop into my head at any given moment

'You are the first woman in my life'

HA! Right, you are the first man in my life too - wink wink

'You are great in bed'

Damn right!  I cannot not argue with that! XOXO

'You'll make a great mother'

Have you met me?

'Will you spend your life with me?'

Hmmm depends - are you planning to die young or live to be 100?

'What do you think about .............?'

Not now I have a headache!

'You are my dearest pal'

OMG - what time did you start drinking today?

'I am lucky to have you'

YEP!  see also "You're great in bed"

'You know what's on my mind'

Seriously, headache, remember!  For god-sake man.......

'I love you'

I love you too, but seriously, how much did it cost

until next time.....

XOXO

Hair clubs, zombies and romance

Good morning my lovelies,

I know this isn't the normal "coffee" hour, but I just had a gem that was too precious not the share.   Enjoy!

My new ponytailed-podmate (also know as hair club for men) spent part of the morning regaling me with tales the new granola he just bought that says to add milk and microwave, yesterday he ate it dry, but today he decided to add milk and eat is cold.   Whoa, really living on the edge there hairball.   A few minutes later he started talking me about his desire to visit Disneyland after the Zombie Apocalypse as long as Disneyland has Twinkies......  apparently there is a Zombieland movie reference in there, but since a.) I don't really watch movies in general and b.) ZOMBIES AREN'T REAL this whole conversation was more than a little lost on me.  Now I realize I have a very good poker face (HA!) but I am pretty sure there was nothing (read ABSOLUTELY NOTHING) about the look on my face to indicate I was even remotely interested in this conversation, but still it persisted.  

Not more than 20-minutes after the zombie diatribe ended I hear him smelling something, yep that's right I really I HEARD HIM SMELLING SOMETHING!  (eeeeeewwwwwwww)  So I look up and he is smelling his backpack.  I WISH the saga ended there, but then he asked if "he could borrow my nose" to which I promptly (and NOT politely) responded "NO!"  

OMG, WTF, F*mylife

To recap I now sit less than three-feet away from a strange man with long fingernails (including one extra-long coke nail)  that types VERY loudly, wears his hair in a nappy-ass long ponytail, talks to me about breakfast cereal, zombies and Twinkies and wants me to smell random things.  I know you are all a little jealous (and yes NaNet I am considering buying some dragon figurines to round out this picture) and I will admit I did for almost a millisecond reconsider my position on that whole nursing career thing (OK not really, hair club for men is WAY better than washing some old man's junk.)   

Now, as long as he doesn't decide to share excerpts from his "Sci-Fi/Romance" book I think I will survive this.

Until next time.....

XOXO