Hell with Pizza

My aversion to large groups of children is well documented. I get nervous when I’m out-numbered by people under the age of 16. Heck, when I was a kid I was nervous pretty much all the time while in school, girl scouts and summer camp. I think it explains a great deal.

It’s not that I don’t like children – I’m quite fond of individual children one on one. It’s just the large groups where the adult to child ratio is not 1:1 (or 2:1 for that matter) that I get uneasy.

This past Saturday was hell. On the one hand, there was pizza, on the other it was being served at 11:00 am. And on yet another hand, there was no beer. To top it all off we were at Chuck E Cheese for my niece’s 8th birthday party. Including Tara, there were 19 children in just our party. That’s not counting the two parties that were also being held at the same time, and the kids there that were not part of the parties.

Truth be told, I kind of like Chuck E Cheese. The pizza isn’t all that bad (it’s that good either, but I’ve had worse) and there are games. I’m not gamer per se. I have a Nintendo Wii and a DSi, and from what my friends “in the know” have told me, that doesn’t mean a whole bunch in the gaming world. But give me a game of Ski Ball or Wheel of Fortune and I’m in my element. I actually made up excuses to go to the arcade at Disney so I could win more tickets. By the time we left, I had won a two foot tall Mickey for Tara, two Matador Mickeys and a load of random arcade crap. I was a bit worried the staff thought I was a child molester.

It’s the surplus of knee-high children hopped up on a mix of caffeine and sugar along with carbs and cheese that makes the experience less than palatable. Add in a camera happy sister and mother (mom at least understands my camera aversion) along with the general lack of coffee, and I was not a happy camper. I drove, so my original plan of bringing a flask wasn’t going to happen. You can say a lot of things about me, but I at least try not to drink before noon, and I absolutely don’t drive when intoxicated.

All told, I blew about $15 of my own money in tokens, and was given a fresh infusion from my sister. I became the game ringer, earning tickets for the kids who didn’t have the attention span for the less interesting but higher ticket yielding games. At one point I resembled a gerbil hitting the food bar trying to get more food pellets. I knew I was out of control when a cherub came up to me and told me she wanted to play the game I had been hogging – I checked myself, wiped the sweat from my brow (hey, competitive Ski Ball is hard!) and yielded control of the game to her. I went back to my other favorite past time, stuffing my face with pizza and diet coke.

During the break, I got to sit back and watch the kids. When Chuck E Cheese made his appearance, it was pretty cool, even I have to admit that. For those kids it was as if David Beckham had descended shirtless from on high, but less sweaty and a bit furrier. They paraded around, sang along with the party crew and feasted on cake. Ahhh…to be 8 again.

After the chaos, I grabbed my mother and we high-tailed it out there, thrilled that there was no guilt in skipping out on helping with the clean up. As I type this, I’m actually craving rubber pizza and wanting to play games that I know I’ll never hit the jackpot on. I’m wondering what it would take to get a liquor license for them and have the next work happy hour hosted there.

Oh well, a girl can dream. Maybe AC is more up my alley.

Off to the Races

Today was race day – A Brother’s Love 5k in Collegeville. As I’ve shared, I went into the race woefully underprepared. If I’m being perfectly honest, I had decided to bail, and changed my mind around 10:00 last night, after several glasses of wine. I think I just wanted an excuse to eat pasta at 10:00 in the evening, but whatever gets you out the door.

I woke up to a humid but chilly rainy day. Ate an egg, thin slice of pork roll on toast, drank half a cup of coffee and drove to Ursinus. I picked up my race number – ugh, #1. I was hoping that wasn’t an omen. First to start, last to finish?

Met up with my nervous sister (who was extremely chatty, so not what I need pre-race), along with my brother in law and my niece. Tara’s 8th birthday is today, so she was bouncing off the wall, more so than usual. That’s saying something.

We went to the starting line, and the air horn blew. I started strong for a 200+ pound woman who hasn’t run in 3 weeks (I told you I wasn’t prepared). Perhaps a bit too strong, but I pushed. I made it about 10 minutes before I had to take the first of many walk breaks. I followed that pattern. Run for as long and steady as I could, walked when I needed to.

My goal stayed the same as when I registered – try to finish in under 45 minutes and on my own two feet (or knees and palms if I had to crawl). I have to admit the unoccupied running car on one corner was awfully tempting.

I picked out landmarks, run to that black mailbox, then you can walk. Get through this hill, then you can walk. Pass those two little girls who were walking, then you can walk. This went on for a while.

I crossed back over Main Street and got into the home stretch. I popped in a fresh piece of gum, big mistake - cookie toss #1. I pushed on – got a little lost. No arrows, and nobody in front of me to lead the way, but I figured out the rest of the train and ran toward the finish line. The folks who had finished before me were along the sides encouraging me.

I gave one last push, ran across the finish line, went behind a trash can and tossed my cookies for a second time. Classy, aren’t I? I was happy I didn’t finish last. It may not have been pretty, and it may have been 4th or 5th from last, but not last.

So, what’s next? Get back on the WW Wagon and exercising regularly. Thinking about another 5k in July, and am definitely doing another one for the LiveStrong Challenge for Team Mak in August. But for now, I’m going to be proud of what I accomplished.
For the record, I’d still rather drive 3.2 miles :)

Going Back to the Well

My name is Beth and I'm a food-a-holic.

I've been off the wagon for two and a half weeks now.

Sure, I've tired - oatmeal with brown sugar and one (or two) slices of bacon for breakfast and not a sesame seed bagel with full fat cream cheese and three slices of bacon. A turkey sandwich (with cheese (and sometimes even more bacon)) for lunch and a quasi-decent dinner. An improvement over the cheesestreak and fries and medium pizza. Still, nowhere near where I should be.

Curves has been more hit than miss, and the treadmill is getting that layer of dust back on it.

I knew I was in trouble when I got one of the specials in the cafeteria today for lunch - chicken breast with cheese and bacon (have I mentioned how much I love bacon?) on a kaiser with a side of fries for lunch. To be fair, I didn't take the full portion of fries - the "boat" was about 1/4 full as opposed to overflowing, but still, there were fries in it.

Where did it all go wrong? Two weeks ago I got a new car, fairly stressful, at least for me. I'm not sure where it ranks in the new job, new house, death of a loved one, etc. ranking of stressful events, but seeing as how I live with the 'rents and I consider myself one step away from living in my car, it's up there on my list.

The worst part? I lost just under three pounds the first week I was quasi-off the wagon, and down 1/2 lb on my second week off of the wagon. My large ass is pretty much fully off the wagon this week.

I wonder what the scale is going to say this Friday?

Still, I'm determined the pay the piper, and I'm trying to focus on the positives.

I ate 1/3 of the superfluous bag of Cheese-Its today, and not the full bag. The fry boat was only 1/4 full. I haven't gone over to the bagel with cream cheese side - yet. So I'm trying to stop it now.

To paraphrase Usher, these are my confessions...

I have a 5k this weekend. Nowhere near trained for it, but I've signed up for it and I suspect that rather than running I'll be walking. That's OK. The fact is, I'm going to haul my ass 3.2 miles by foot when I'd much rather drive.

I'm also down 18 pounds since I've started on this journey. I may have gained some back - I'll know on Friday - but it stops now.

I'm rededicating myself - I'm committing myself to losing 30 pounds this summer via www.biggestloser.com, the Pounds for Pound challenge and Weight Watchers. I'm going back to the well for inspiration before my 18 pound loss becomes a 25 pound gain. I hope this qualifies as change.

Elizabeth Edwards

I have a lot of faults, I know that. I have a potty mouth (my favorite word begins with f and ends with k, and I ain't talking about a firetruck), I suck with money management and I'm an inconsistent friend, sister, daughter, etc.

One of the things I pray for each night is to be less judgmental. Amongst all of my flaws, I struggle the most with this. I try to give freely of my time and resources, and when I see that those organizations or people aren’t acting in a way I understand, I get bit hostile. I know, it makes me an asshole, but at least I know it, and I’m trying to work on it.

I’m the first to admit that relationships aren’t my forte. I’ve always perceived myself as a bit of a black sheep, and I know that I project that, so the number of serious relationships I have been in is fairly pathetic.

However, I’m at a loss to understand Elizabeth Edwards. She and her husband have admitted that he had an affair with someone he had hired to work as a documentarian on his campaign, and he may or may not have fathered a child with her. In the midst of this, Mrs. Edwards was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She has said that she and her husband are working on their marriage, and citing her illness she did not want to spend what time she has left fighting.

Me? I’d rather be alone than wonder if my husband was telling me the truth this time.

I wonder just how far we have come as a gender that in 2009. Mrs. Edwards is placing a great deal of the blame for this relationship on the other woman. Wasn’t her husband the one who was married? Yes, he was and still is a public figure, so one would imagine that the other party would have known that he wasn’t “on the market’ so to speak, but who knows what he was telling her.

When asked about the paternity of the child Mr. Edward’s mistress gave birth to, Mrs. Edwards, naively in my opinion, stated that it wasn’t a part of her life. Fair enough, but wouldn’t this child be the half-sister of her children? Doesn’t that make it a part of her life?

At the end of the day, this truly isn’t my problem. I’ve never been involved with a married man, at least not to my knowledge (let’s just say my last significant relationship occurred when the phrase “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky” was in the national vernacular).

I am sad that woman with Mrs. Edwards experience and education wouldn’t walk away from a man who would not only cheat on her, but lie to her about it. I hope I’m never in her situation. There is part of me that wants to get on the phone and tell her to come to my house and move in with my parents and crazy dogs. Better to be “alone” than to be with a liar, but then again, who am I to judge?

Sigh. I guess I still have a lot to work on.

No Words

I saw Face/Off at the nail salon a few weeks ago, and I’ll admit that the concept sounded pretty cool. John Travolta, a government agent of some sort (ok, I wasn’t paying close attention to it) went through a face transplant in order to catch a villainous Nichols Cage. Through the wonder of movie medical science, he looked and sounded just like Nic Cage. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I wished such a procedure existed. It’s not that I hate how I look, but I wouldn’t be devastated if my acne-scarred face with a slightly bulbous nose suddenly morphed into the twin of Gisele Bundchen or Heidi Klum (of course, I’d want the neck down to match, but that’s another blog for another day).

A few months ago, the Cleveland Clinic announced that they had successfully performed a full face transplant. At the time, the family of the patient didn’t disclose details, only saying that the woman had a life altering injury.

Today the patient unveiled her new face to the word. The after picture isn’t pretty – yeah, I’ll say it. But the before was nothing short of horrific. Apparently her husband shot her in the face, then shot himself. Apparently he survived because he served, what is in my opinion, a paltry 7 year jail sentence. She had a much longer sentance.

A story was recounted at the press conference of her encountering a little girl who chided her mother saying “Mommy, you said there were no real monsters and there’s one right there”. Bravely she said to the little girl that she had been shot in the face and that she wasn’t a monster. I hate to think how I would have reacted.

I watched the video of the press conference, and I’m ashamed of my Heidi Klum face transplant fantasy. I’ve never been mistaken for a monster and I’ve always been able to taste, smell and swallow. Even on my worst body image day, I’ve been able to leave the house.

May God bless you Connie Culp – and may God bless the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic and the work that they do.

Puppy Love

I heard a story the other day that made me sad. My friend’s neighbor adopted a 9 month old Lab/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. After having “Baby” for three weeks, he decided to surrender the dog. His major complaint? The dog followed him around the apartment and “cramped his style”. His solution to the following him around the apartment was to chain the dog to his bed. He also alternatively disciplined/showed affection by smacking the dog. On one hand, I’m glad the dog was given up. Mixed messages and a life confined to a limited space is no life at all. On the other, I’m sad. He was probably the world to this dog, and she doesn’t understand why she is now in a cage. I wanted to share my story with dogs...

Clancie was a part of the family before I was born. She was a mutt – her mother was the pet of a colleague of my dad, and her father, as my mother put it, was a “traveling man”. Clancie was the sweetest dog. When I was born, I had three mothers – my 2 ½ year old sister who believed she was my mom, my actual mother, and Clancie. My mother told me that when I cried, Clancie would pace between my crib and my mother as if to inform her something was amiss. Personally, I think the shrieking was driving the poor pup up the wall. When I became mobile, my cash strapped parents didn’t need to invest in a walker. My sweet natured mutt allowed me to grab a fistful of her hair and toddle along, glancing back when I let go to make sure I landed safely. Clancie died shortly before my sister took the test for her driver’s license. My parents didn’t tell her for fear she would be too upset, although we both knew from the state of our distraught father. Clancie’s death left a hole in the family that went unfilled for a few years.

Flash forward to 1990. My neighbor mentioned her ne’er do well brother had a friend with Lab/Irish Setter pups. The time was right, and my mother went over with our neighbor’s year old daughter, who picked out an adorable female. Murphy Brown starring Candice Bergen was on the air, and I suggested Murphy as her name, and it was accepted by the family. Murph was a sweet, dopey dog. On more than one occasion I came downstairs to a black Murphy-shaped mass on the dining room table, mid-chase after one of the cats. She also believed the sofa was her space during the day - leaving the cushions scattered on the living room floor. She and I truly bonded when she was hit by a skunk in the face one night. I’ll never forget her sitting in front of me, her body stinking and her eyes tearing, pleading, as of to say “You have opposable thumbs – DO SOMETHING”. She died in April, 2002 and I cried for a week. My grandmother’s death a month later was nothing compared to how I felt when Murphy left us. It was that bad. I still regret that I ran from the room when she was euthanized – I couldn’t take the pleading look in her eyes, not understanding why she was in pain and what was happening.

A month later, I went to the SPCA – "I miss Murphy" I told my mother, "the house isn’t the same without her." My mother was thrilled to have a dog-hair free house for once. Dad and I over-ruled her – she went along for crowd control. The three of us walked into the SPCA the Friday before Memorial Day. In one of the cages sat a beautiful, 6 month old black lab – male, a first for us who always had female dogs. My father likes to say Jazz (as he was known then) was the poster child for pet rescue. We walked up to the cage and “talked”’ to him – he approached us, licking our hands, tail wagging. I went out and informed the volunteer that we found a dog we liked – they took him out of the cage so we could meet. The little guy promptly jumped on us, giving us sloppy kisses. We were then told we might not be able to take him that day. My mother, who by then was in love, gave a look as if to say “no you didn’t”. Fortunately, we were able to bring him home that day and christened him Bogey. Upon entering our homne, he ran into the living room, peed on the rug, humped my father’s recliner and barked at my dad who by then had lit up a cigarette. "Hey, you have smoke coming out of your mouth" he seemed to be saying.

That weekend was a long one – one of Bogey’s favorite games was to stick his paw into the water dish, overturning it, and splashing around. He also liked pulling the table cloth off of the dining room table, and standing in front of you and barking for no apparent reason. But things got better – slowly. He was amazing with my then 1 year old niece. He sniffed around her – not quite sure what to make of her. When she started walking, he hovered around her like a nervous nanny. We were alarmed at first when he knocked her down, then we realized he was only knocking her down when she went hear a door or a stair. I was his human chew toy – he cracked one of my acrylic nails with his enthusiastic chewing and pulled me backwards off of stairs when he decided to greet a neighbor instead of going back inside. My quick maneuver to the rain soaked lawn saved me from serious injury. One night, after one such impulsive action, I sat at the kitchen table, sobbing after a long frustrating day made longer, dabbing at my wound. Bogey sat in front of me, licking my bleeding knee – all he knew was that I was sad and he wanted to make it better.

Bogey’s 7 ½ now and getting older – grey hair flecks his ebony fur. He’s still my baby – when I pat my knee to call my smaller beagle up, Bogey hops right up at the first sign of hesitation on the beagle's part. He eagerly enters my bedroom when I leave the door open and hops up to sleep next to his mommy. He doesn’t quite understand that a 90 lb dog isn’t a lapdog, and I believe truly thinks he is my baby.

Owning a dog can be trying – my beagle thinks that peeing inside is her right rather than something that should be avoided. Bogey stands in front of me barking each night, defiant if I don’t supply him with unlimited treats of his liking. I fostered an adorable dachshund this past summer who was child-averse and used his feces as a weapon. All things being equal, I’d still have the dachshund in my home, but he went back to his mommy, who he adores and protects as if he was 5 times his size.

Dogs aren’t a cake walk – they aren’t stuffed animals to be put in a closet to be trotted out at your convenience, they aren’t accessories to be stuffed in a purse. In a perfect world, the SPCA and the Humane Society would be obsolete – animals wouldn’t be abused, and the only dogs being born would be the ones who have homes and people who would commit to them like the babies they are. Until then, my heart aches for every Baby out there, who is sitting in a cell, not knowing what she did wrong, missing the owner she loved.

Stay strong Baby – I know that help is on the way.