Not risking angering the Running Gods

In case the Running Gods talk to the Doctor Gods, I'm not gonna say ANYTHING tonight about my post-surgery visit coming up in the morning.

Please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please

Where's Norman Rockwell when you need him?

Why? Why why WHY do we continually harbor fantasies of the Norman Rockwell Christmas? You know, the one where children wait in breathless anticipation of Santa and have their best manners on display? Well, not at MY house.

The 12 Festive Memories of Christmas 2008 for me are:

1. Kids running through the house anxiously awaiting the arrival of their cousins, only to refuse to open the door for them when they arrived.

2. Kids + cousins running through the house like wild monkeys that knocked over the etched glass commemorative photo thing that was presented upon the purchase of Dad’s dream Harley in 2006 and shattered it (ooh – shattered like my dreams! Foreshadowing!)

3. Kids + cousins descending like Lord of the Flies upon Grandpa’s awesome goody-bags-of-random-free-imprinted-tchotckes and being underwhelmed with foam can koozies and chip clips and throwing them aside.

4. The dog eating meatballs from the kids table. He knows how to tiptoe!

5. Kids getting Nerf guns from the cousins. Joy… I predicted this, and thus I intentionally purchased a Lego set for the cousins so that my brother & sis-in-law can think of me every time they step on a Lego. Love you too, guys!

6. Kids + cousins playing with Nerf guns upstairs and being so wild that they knocked over 2 tower computers AND a UPS.

7. Nerf shotgun broke in less than 12 hours. Gee darn. (Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!)

8. Wii confiscation in LESS than 24 hours for smartmouthing Mom & Dad. A new world record!

9. Grownups sitting in kid chairs and having a chair collapse under them. (Everyone is fine)

10. The foam rockets are already on the house roof.

11. Getting duplicate Nintendo cartridges but not keeping the receipt. (Hot Wheels for the DS, anyone?)

12. Getting facial waxing in preparation for New Year’s Eve festivities and breaking out in zillions of insanely painful whiteheads. Next time I’ll stay hairy and pimple/pain free, thank you!

But you know what, I got a SNUGGIE (the blanket with SLEEVES) and I’m happy as a clam. Yes, we did get the BOGO offer, and I was able to discover that the Slanket is a competing product offered for about $50. For my birthday – I’m hoping for the ShamWOW!

I’m really glad that no one gave me the Clap for Christmas. This is just WRONG on so many levels, people - festive venereal or plague diseases as fuzzy stuffed creatures just sends the wrong message. When you care enough to send the very deadliest.

And you know what hurts the most? The Giant Microbe people are probably in their mansion with swimming pool and THEIR kids appreciated Christmas. (Apparently Santa brought the WRONG Nerf guns so my oldest is disappointed in Christmas once again. And we saw that stinking Transformer Helmet at the We B Overpriced Fragile Toys THIS year that we could not locate last year. We almost bought it and gave him the "hmm - Santa must have been working from last year's list by mistake" story. Maybe it would have worked!

Sigh.

Blue Efficiency

http://the8colorsoffitness.com/book/

Have you seen this yet? Not satisfied with knowing our "Love Languages", or our Briggs-Myers, or the rest of the psycho-babble (that I admittedly LOVE), now we need to know what our fitness color is so we can exercise appropriately.

I'm blue efficiency. "Blues are guided by clear fitness goals and objectives. Often these goals are based on advice from health and medical professionals or information from the media, or perhaps center on improving performance in sports or other activities. Blues prefer keeping their exercise plans plain, simple, and easy to execute so they can achieve their goals. Keeping commitments to themselves ranks high with Blues."

So.... I've posted the quiz on the left side here --- what are YOU???

Carry On Bags

12/30 edit - HMMM - Glad to see that Cathy Guisewhite is a loyal reader! Check out the cartoon for today!!

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It's Christmas, and we all know that the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is that "oh gosh - I'm going to gain 5 lbs" time of year. To heck with shopping, Christmas cards, family time.... it's all about food!

Watching too much Food Network lately has made me realize how differently people can interpret the same message. It's something that was explained in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People kool-aid session that I went to earlier this year, and it made sense, but this whole week of Food Network has really driven it home.

Essentially, we all receive the same identical data from a message -- and a message can be something intentional (a conversation, an e-mail, a commercial) or something non-intentional (experiences and sensory input). BUT what happens is that we all filter it differently and process it differently. What I read / see / hear is the same actual data that you read / see / hear (assuming you are in the same place with me), but how we interpret that data can be very VERY different.

Since it's that time between Thanksgiving & Christmas when as a nation we all obsess over food - eating it, not eating it, cooking it, sharing it, wearing it - it's only appropriate that I visit this topic around food. I don't think there's one person in this country that is legally sane and not in a coma that doesn't think about food. It's as much a part of this time of year as Christmas trees, turkeys & shopping. So why is this worth mention? It's that whole FILTER thing.

According to TV, newspapers & magazines, we are supposed to be showing our love by feeding others right now. Thanksgiving stopped being about giving thanks for the things we have a long time ago, and became a competitive cooking contest. FOOD FOOD FOOD! Why do we celebrate the things that we have (and I mean non-material things here) by cooking & consuming at least twice the food that we normally have on a daily basis in just one meal? How did that become the appropriate and expected behavior? Why do we celebrate by eating ourselves into a food coma and then throw away enough food to feed another family? (And if you are one of those perfecto types that uses every single scrap & turkey bone to feed the family for the subsequent week - well enjoy being in the minority).

Then comes Christmas! Well, I shouldn't say Christmas. I should say FOOD MONTH. Think about what is considered a "traditional" Christmas. Bake cookies. Have parties. Have a Cookie Exchange where you trade cookies with others. Eat cookies. Drink eggnog. Bake more cookies (gotta have some for Santa). Have Christmas Eve dinner. Have a rich breakfast for Christmas Day. Christmas dinner. Cookies. Pies. Candy. Cake. Turkey. Eggnog. Eat eat eat EAT!

Then comes January 1st and everyone jokes about gaining a few pounds and goes on a diet. For most people, this is just the way it works. But what about the fat people?

Fat people go along and make the same jokes about gaining weight during the holidays. But for most, it's a show. Fatties look at the skinny people and watch them eating everything seemingly without care, whereas the fatties have to hide what they are doing. Everyone has looked at a fattie eating something rich & nasty and thought those "haven't they realized what causes them to be fat?" thoughts? But you'd walk past a skinny person at the same table eating the same rich & nasty food and think "that looks YUMMY". Don't worry - it goes BOTH ways. Fatties look at a skinny person eating a plate of bacon cheese fries and think "don't you KNOW what is in that??!"

It's a vicious double standard, and that makes the fatties have more than the usual food stress at this time of year, along with those that love them. A mom that has an overweight kid is reluctant to bake or buy Christmas cookies because she knows that people judge him (and HER as well) by how he looks. But the kid doesn't understand that mom is trying to help him and just wants Christmas cookies cause that's what were "supposed" to do at Christmas.

A fattie goes to a Christmas party and there's nothing there that's "safe" to eat other than the veggie tray, and even then the ranch dip is a bazillion fat grams in it. "Did you try the crab dip or those cheesecake bars?" And even if you decide on having only one nibble "just to be polite", it always ends up with you getting more bad memories of making bad food choices than the good memories of spending time with friends and family.

It's not "just" Christmas that causes this -- even just an innocent backyard bbq in the summer can be a pitfall with hamburgers & hot dogs & macaroni salad. The fatties don't want to be even more "different" by bringing their own food (cause that makes the host feel guilty about not accomodating you and just highlights the special category fatties are in), so they just try to fit in and not think about it.

We don't think twice about accomodating vegetarians, people with allergies or other cultures/religions, but somehow feel offended by the fatties and their food requests.

So this Christmas, let's try to find some memories and show our love to others without involving high fat, high calorie foods. In fact, let's try NOT to show our love via food at all. Food does NOT equal LOVE people. They are both 4 letter words, but they don't mean the same thing. Don't give kids a cookie when they are sad, give them a hug.

And if you have a party or Christmas meal, try out some healthy but tasty alternatives (I personally LOVE Hungry-Girl for real food that rocks) as your main choices, not as the consolation "oh - I'll grab a veggie tray at the store" prize for the fatties.

Pros & Cons of Knee Surgery

Don't expect anything really profound here. I am not a doctor, I do not play one on TV, and I did NOT stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

• Post-op pain is no worse than what it felt like BEFORE the surgery - PRO
• You are still given really awesome pain pills - PRO
• You get to watch all the Food Network you want - PRO
• Gaining 5 lbs from watching multiple episodes of Paula Deen and thinking "yeah - that'd be great for dinner this week" - CON Explain to me how a 9 x 13 pan of apple streusel cheesecake bars - 24 squares - can be 4 - 6 SERVINGS? Who could withstand that much sugar shock? Could you really sit and intentionally eat 6 squares of this?
• Wanting to smack Sandra Lee and her semi-homemade "I live in a fantasy world where children can drink from adorable real china teacups and actually call the dining room table a 'tablescape'" - PRO Why hasn't anyone clued in on how horrible this woman is? Martha Stewart is as mellow as a hippie in a turquoise VW bus compared to her.
• Doing the mental math on when you'll start rehab and when your dream race is, and envisioning yourself crawling across the finish line at Disney - CON

And last but not least, finding out that Paris picked Brittany as her new BFF and completely ditched that horrible Vanessa - PRO!

Someone please explain to me why you watch completely different trash TV when you are "sick" than you do normally? Is it the pain pills? Is it the stress on your body causing you to obsess over Clean House, and totally set the Tivo for Split Ends (after cursing cause it's only on once a week and you MISSED it)? I don't know. But it's time for the Paris Hilton My New BFF After Show - gotta go!