Living Not So Well Lady: One Bad Day at the Gym

Every Wednesday evening I take this kick-butt cardio kick boxing class and every Wednesday I am very afraid. Our teacher is like a drill instructor and at 149 beats a minute without breaks, she tells us that we are her slowest class. Her class is HARD; let me put it this way – she trained in Tae Bo with Billy Blanks. She says she is a drill instructor and I am pretty sure she means literally as I certainly feel like I am in the army – and she definitely makes us drop and do push-ups.

I try to keep up by staying at the front of the room. I sweat, hop and pant my way through every step. We’re all moving and praying that she doesn’t see any one put their hands on their hips or we’ll all have to do 20 more of whatever we were doing. By the end of class I am literally stinking but I feel exhilarated. I feel proud that I once again made it through the class – it’s just not as easy as it used to be.

Last week I don’t know what I was doing or trying to prove but I think I jammed something – so much to the point that I felt like I was two inches shorter. I felt like I was in one of those Lifetime movies where “a freak accident leaves someone paralyzed” as I gingerly tried to maneuver around the next couple of days. Turning my head required turning my entire body in the desired direction; putting on shoes meant trying to retrieve them with my toes and tossing them up into my hands to put on rather than bending, and it felt better walking sideways rather than straight ahead. I felt really pathetic when Parker offered to help me walk! It has been a week and I am still walking tentatively and have not been to the gym since. I finally waved the white flag and made a doctor’s appointment for Friday. I thought this was something I could shake off with rest and taking it slow, but the old body doesn’t seem to recover like it used to.

In my 20s and 30s I lived on the Upper Eastside in New York. There used to be this gym called Living Well Lady right at 86th and Lexington where the instructors, all dancers, would smoke cigarettes, eat potato chips and sip soda while waiting for class to start – they were about a size 2. I was right along with them as I’d treat myself to a box of Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies and a can of chocolate frosting as a treat for after step AND aerobics class. It was so easy to go from class to class, hopping, kicking and jumping and then eating a diet of chocolate, hamburgers and fries. I could do that with ease, stay a size 6, and hit repeat. Now I do a bad move in the ONE difficult class I take each week and feel like my body is broken!

What used to be cured with a quick rest now takes a week of monk like stillness to only slightly improve. Yesterday I made myself take a walk because you know at this age it takes one day to gain weight and one month to get it off. I was going so slow I felt like I was walking in reverse. But I trudged on – and I guess that’s the solution. Keep moving through it. I will never be that young girl flying through aerobics classes again – the veins on my hands and rings around my neck remind me of that. But I can meet myself where I am.

I’ll keep fighting the good fight, keep exercising and making doctor’s appointments so that I can recover from whatever trauma I inflict on my body and keep hoping that everything stays in place – at least until the next class.

The Apple Ain't Nowhere Near this Tree!

Let me tell you how I was in college – quiet. People knew me because I had a gorgeous 5’10” green-eyed sister whom everyone knew. But the same three or four friends I met freshman year, were the same friends I left with. Same with high school, three friends until the end. Don’t get me wrong, I had a LOT of fun with those friends, it’s just I was never the center of attention; everyone else was. My business partner always gets on me because I am never in the photos – I think I do it intentionally. I prefer to be behind the scenes and it’s worked out nicely for me.

I’ve made a conscious effort to tell my daughter to be an independent thinker, to walk to her own drum. I tell her about drugs, drinking and violence against women and to be responsible for her body. I tell her that she might see two mommies or two daddies and that love comes in many forms. She gets mad when she sees litter saying “Mommy, someone is being bad to the earth,” and I smile thinking “Good job mom.”

I want her to be a better version of me. I don’t want her to be a wall flower like I was, but she takes it to the extreme. It’s like she is the complete opposite of me. She’ll puts on shorts, high heels, lipstick and a wig and want to go outside. She mixes and matches her bathing suits, preferring to wear bikinis when she can. She begs me for lipstick and I visibly see her demeanor change when a boy is around; she gets all girly and silly and I want to scream “get it together!” You warn your daughters about little boys, but I have a feeling I’ll have to warn a few moms to protect their sons from my daughter. She can be raucous and loud where I was quiet and shy.

I still try to sing the childhood songs I made up for her when she was a baby but she will drop me in a heartbeat for Ariana Grande or Iggy Azaelea. I put her in ballet and tap hoping to introduce her to dance. I didn’t want her in hip hop because I thought it’d be too grown. For three years I watched her clunk through some painful movements during recitals. She always got cheers for personality over performance. Yet, without a lesson she has managed to match the Ariana’s “One Less Problem” video in one attempt.

And don’t let her see another cute kid. When she went to my niece’s camp performance, Park was outraged when a cute little girl (who oddly enough everyone thought was her sister) performed and got attention, later telling me she challenged the girl to a dance-off and declaring “Oh – it’s not over!” She still brings this up, months later as if there is a dance-off waiting to happen. My brother-in-law still blames me for my nephew’s lack of coordination. I am the known non-dancer in the family – even my mother won a dance contest on the Katie Couric show!

When we go on vacation everyone knows her, certainly before they know me or Larry. She’s the kid people from Canada wanted to take photos with when she was a baby. When I go to her school, parents tell me even the older kids know Parker and she cracks them up. My daughter is a sweet girl but she can be wild and un-tame. She is that kid that always looks a mess at the end of the day as she comes tumbling off the bus. She is so unlike me – no one knew who I was in high school and this kid has eighth graders who know her name.

But I’ve decided that’s ok. Although I don’t see any resemblance of me in her, others do. They say they see it in her attitude, personality and actions – so maybe she is like the woman I’ve grown into as an adult. Sometimes I have to shake my head and go “where did this little girl come from,” and then she asks for a magazine to use the bathroom and I think, oh yeah, she’s mine!

School Trippin'

I have been waiting for two years to go on a field trip with my daughter’s school; a privilege that starts in kindergarten. I already had my police background check and fingerprinting done, which is customary these days and I was ready to go. I even thought of counter-actions I could perform to combat the death-stare Parker would surely give me if she saw me so much as talking to another child in her presence. I’ve had plenty of experience with that volunteering in her classroom – the cold stare, followed by the hung head, followed by tears; but I was ready to spread equal love while making her feel special.

The day before the trip the teacher told me that neither she nor the assistant teacher from their class would be going. I could have sworn I saw clouds cover the sky and a raven land on my roof as she said that! Was this an omen? Nevertheless, I was determined to carry on with a positive attitude.

Got to school and got a little nervous as one new kid pointed gun fingers at me. Another kid told the teacher and the student immediately put them back in his holster while others regaled me by telling stories of the guns their dads had at home. I guess she’s in a class with pro-NRA parents! Two little boys got the “you’d better behave or you will never go on a school trip without your parent personally bringing you” talk and I began to imagine a wild day full of me chasing kids through the zoo and quite possibly making the news.

All of the kindergarten students loaded onto ONE school bus. Well, I have not been on a school bus in decades and forgot all about that one seat with the hump on the floor – of course that is where I sat, with my knees to my chest, with two girls from another class who were clearly disheartened they had to sit next to an adult. Why wasn’t I with Parker you ask? Why wasn’t I with my darling girl who practically sits on my head at home, and who last year wouldn’t want me to so much as look at a classmate? Why she was in the back with her two girlfriends not thinking about Mommy being snubbed upfront.

We made it to the zoo and we were off! And while I imagined chasing kids across acres of land with some potentially ending up in a cage somewhere, our group was surprisingly well-behaved. It helped that the teachers were experienced pros. While I as a parent, always worried about how I was talking to someone else’s child was like, “Darling, stand over here; sweetheart, don’t do that,” the teachers had those kids in line in short-order with a few stern words and a look that seemed to solve any problem. My favorite line from a teacher that day was “listen the first time;” I have since used it 1000 times at home; obviously Park listens to me the 3rd or 4th time! The weather was great and it seemed as if all the animals were out celebrating – the lion pride, pandas, elephants, great apes – you name it, we saw it. One teacher had her Fitbit with her and we clocked 11,000 steps in about three hours, so there was a side benefit as well. Of course I got back to school and was so tired and exhausted that I went for McDonalds including the Oreo McFlurry with extra-extra Oreo thus negating every single step, but I consider it my reward for my effort – and I did get the Happy Meal which was probably on 17,000 calories vs. 25,000.

So the day wasn’t so bad after all, other than being really, really tired, we had a great time and I’d do it again, which is a good thing as the next trip is in two weeks!

Slow Jam the Mammogram

Slow Jam the Mammogram

Not that long ago I had a mammogram; that turned into a comprehensive mammogram that turned into an MRI. So you know when that happens you’re already as nervous as crap, and as my sister says, I’m a “pre-worrier.” I worry about things in the future – finding a Montessori high school for Park (who is in kindergarten), wondering if I’ll have to replace my bed when I’m older because it’s so high and I don’t want to break a hip climbing in; shoot, I even insisted on putting a full bath on my main floor in case I got too old or sick to climb the stairs and needed to live in what is now my office. That’s just how I am. I like to plan so I won’t be caught off guard and I guess I thought that included my health. So when they kept sending me back in for tests, I was trying not to go over the edge.

So I get to the place for MRI in time for my 7:00 a.m. appointment and they can’t find my referral. I hadn’t had breakfast as I figured I’d be in and out. Two hours later, I am still sitting there nibbling on two saltine crackers that a minister shared with me, trying to fight off a hunger headache while keeping my mind from going to defcon 1. When I finally get called in, I am hungry, tired and aggravated, THEN I discover they need to give me an IV. I HATE needles! But there’s more - after, they took me to this huge metal contraption where I am told I have to lay perfectly still, face down with the offending breast in a, for lack of a better word, hole, for a half hour so they can capture the image! Of course the minute they said something like that everything on my body started to itch and I wanted to sneeze. I knew this was going to be interesting. I got as comfortable as I possibly could and got ready.

But wait a minute – what’s that I hear in the headsets they put on me? Was that LUTHER, begging to “hold me tight, if only for one night?!” I was thinking, what in the world is going on? Apparently they pump in music to relax you during this stressful experience and we were about to slow jam this mammogram! Clearly, they hit the “black mix” button for no sooner had Luther left than Heatwave was loving me “Always and Forever.” It took everything in my being to keep from cracking up and/or waving my hand in air!

The whole experience took me back to the Wegman’s where I live where, while shopping you can hear Earth, Wind & Fire asking “would you mind, if I touch, if I kiss if I held you tight, in the morning light,” all while getting eggs! The DC-area can be a veritable R&B mix of music that you hear while doing basic errands - shopping, sitting at the gas station and apparently even when you get an MRI! For a half an hour I had my own little “Quiet Storm,” a veritable concert of 70’s and 80’s R & B music that calmed my fears, relaxed me, and actually gave me a few laughs.

When it all came out in the wash, I was lucky - I had dense breasts – all of that for dense breasts! If I’m going to have dense breasts they could at least be large! Dense breasts mean a follow-up mammogram, which I had today. It is a comprehensive mammogram where they take about 107 images and have a radiologist review the results. No MRI, no IV, no music. I stared at the eggplant walls in dead silence, while they pressed my breasts into various positions. While standing there, I felt a sense of nostalgia for my MRI as I imagined being back in that room, with my headsets, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots in the background as Brian Williams starts with “Aww yeah…” - and I cracked a smile. Mammograms will never be the same again!

P.S. My mammogram was fine and I am back to regular screenings. To all my women friends October is Breast Awareness Month – get your mammogram!!!!