I am so totally cheating today, but I read this and loved it so much, I’m hoping to get it out to a wider audience.
Besides, Maureen Dowd cheated first — she asked Aaron Sorkin to imagine a meeting between fictional “West Wing” president Jed Bartlet and Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, then published the results as her column the other day. If Maureen can do it, I can do it. I think we both want as many people as possible to read this:
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler kicked off Saturday Night Live the other night playing Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. I defy you not to laugh.
(Sorry I have to be lame and post a link to the video, instead of the video itself, but the YouTube versions I found were blurry, and this one is crystal clear.)
I see that my link to Anna Quindlen’s thoughts on Sarah Palin got a lot of hits, so I thought I’d post this piece, too. IMO, it’s not as well-written as Anna’s — the first paragraph is weak — but Eve does make some excellent points, and I feel that intelligent women have to get the word out as best we can. If I can influence just one person who would vote for McCain/Palin just because Palin’s a woman, or because that person just always votes Republican no matter what, then I’ll feel I’ve done *something* to avoid the train wreck that VP Palin would be.
Here is my favorite quote from the piece — click on it to read the column in its entirety.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking.
And my second favorite quote. Read it and think.
“I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.”
Seriously, folks.
If you had told me a year ago that I’d be addicted to going to the gym, I would have laughed my head off. I am SO not the gym type. I’m not the working out type. I’m a total lazy ass, truth be known, and I sadly miss the days when I could eat and drink whatever I wanted, health be damned, and still stay pretty much the same size.
In 2007, however, a series of unfortunate events finally inspired me to get off my 40-year-old butt and do something about my health. It wasn’t anything as cliched as turning 40; I refuse to believe that being 40 means one foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel, as some people would like you to think. Forty is the new 30, people!
What happened is this: last year, on September 13, I had a stupid accident that totally screwed up my foot and ankle — extremely bad sprains. Several doctors and nurses told me that a break would have been better, because it would have healed faster and probably would have been less painful. As it was, I had to be on crutches or in a wheelchair for more than 6 weeks. It took me at least 6 more weeks, along with lots of physical therapy, before I was able to walk semi-normally.
This happened less than 6 months after a knee injury (that was misdiagnosed and mistreated for several weeks, argh), and about 3 months after some minor surgery, so by the time the end of December rolled around and I was done with wheelchair, crutches and PT, I was severely out of shape. My weight, blood pressure and especially my cholesterol had risen to unhealthy levels, so I did the unthinkable: I joined a gym.
Even as I type that phrase, even though it’s been nearly 10 months since I did it, I still can’t believe I did. But something had to give, and I knew from experience that I’m not motivated enough to work out at home. Although I was officially done with physical therapy, my ankle still hurt. My doctor was bugging me about putting me on cholesterol meds, and I was trying to get off as many meds as possible. And I HATED being as heavy as I was. One day, while leafing through one of those annoying flyers that pop up in the newspaper from time to time, I saw a coupon for a new place that had opened near my house, and I marched my butt over there and signed up before I could think too hard about it. I’m also a cheapskate, so I figured that spending money would be a good motivator.
I go to a place called Fitness 19, and I love it. It’s perfect for me. It’s so low pressure — nobody there is on commission, nobody is trying to sell you on anything or push you into anything, and it’s not at all a meat-market type of place. I can go in, do my workout in peace, and leave. I also love it because most of the cardio machines have TVs on them, so I can plug in and watch a little TV, which I normally don’t do at home (too much else to do at home!). Going there relieves my stress in so many ways. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this past year without it.
When I first started, my biggest goal was to strengthen my ankle, which was still painful, with the secondary goal of lowering my BP and cholesterol. The staff was incredibly helpful in showing me which cardio machines to use to keep as much weight/pressure off my ankle as possible. With the threat of cholesterol medication hanging over my head, and a deep fear of my ankle giving out on me while navigating the icy winter sidewalks of Buffalo, I started going almost every day and realized it can feel really good to work up a sweat. I also discovered an added benefit: it became a guilt-free way to take some time for myself while trying to juggle kids, a husband, a household, and a job. Like most moms, I always put myself last, and now I was doing something for myself.
After several months, my cholesterol was better and my ankle seemed almost completely better (still twinges when it rains, though), but I wasn’t losing much weight, despite the fact that I was going 4-5 days a week and doing 30-40 minutes of cardio a day. I talked to one of the senior staff members, and he pointed out that I needed to add strength training to my routine. Strength training? Me? I was so clueless… and looking at those machines was intimidating. And there was no way I was going to go start lifting weights. Number one, I didn’t know what I was doing, and number two, I was afraid of bulking up.
Then I got a special rate on some personal training sessions. Me, with a personal trainer — every time I thought about it, I laughed. But she was great, and she taught me so much. I did things I never thought I’d be capable of doing. I can be mentally tough, and I have great focus when I want to, and she really brought that out in me. And wow, when someone told me my arms were looking ‘cut’ — I loved it!
Sadly, I can’t afford to continue with the personal trainer, and I had a lot of trouble finding time to get to the gym the last week or so of August/beginning of September. It’s a little depressing how quickly the visible results of working out can disappear! Now that school has started again, I’m trying to get there every day if possible. I actually get anxious if I miss more than one day of going.
I’ll find out in a month or so whether my cholesterol has finally gone down enough to eliminate the threat of meds, but I know I’m going to keep going. I guess I’m now the kind of person who goes to the gym! I guess I’m still evolving — it’s good to know that I can still bring about and accept change in my life!
I admit, I’m a spoiled brat. In my nearly 10 years of being a parent, I have very rarely had to work out of the home, thanks to understanding employers and freelance clients. Today, all I had to do was get up, get myself ready, get the kids up, get them ready, and get us all out the door by 8:45. That ALMOST worked. I didn’t have any makeup on when I left, I forgot about needing gas, and I also miscalculated the amount of traffic I’d face on the route I took to the client’s office at that hour. But I managed to throw some makeup on, en route – whew!
Anyway, I worked until 1:15, then drove to my kids’ school for a presentation while bolting down a drive-thru lunch on the way; after the presentation/school, we drove to the Boy Scout store to pick up some new items for my son, which he needs in order to sell popcorn at the mall tomorrow.
We were home by 4:00, and I am pooped. I realize this is partially because I almost never get enough sleep at night; I usually go to bed when Craig Ferguson says good-night, so by Friday, the cumulative sleep deprivation can hit me pretty hard. But man, all of the running around and juggling today added an extra layer of effort that depleted the last reserves I have!
We are SO ordering a pizza tonight.
Then I have to take my daughter to/from dance class, but at least while she’s dancing, I can go sit in Starbucks and let the caffeinated air revive me. 
If I had written it earlier, today’s post probably would have been a long whine about my annoying day. As luck would have it (although I didn’t think so at the time), I got stuck in the waiting room at Dunn Tire today for almost an hour, and I caught up on a few weeks’ worth of Newsweek magazine.
Anna Quindlen is one of my favorite writers, not only because I usually agree with her, but because she’s just so damn good. So instead of treating y’all to some of my blather, I’m going to link to her excellent column about Sarah Palin:
Also spotted on the Internets tonight, a video spoofing Palin, starring Gina Gershon, who looks eerily like the GOP’s favorite book bannin’, lipstick-wearin’ mouthpiece of God’s plan:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/61410aa4ff
It’s not that funny, but I like the first part, about her college years.
I read a comment today on another blog, made by a woman who is undecided about this year’s election. She said “Sarah Palin doesn’t bother me.” Doesn’t bother you?! I can’t fathom how the idea of this woman being the second-in-command of the United States of America wouldn’t bother anyone with half a brain. Don’t get me started. Go read Anna’s column. It’s wonderful.
Here in Western New York, Labor Day or thereabouts is the beginning of the new year. The new school year, that is. I always think of it, then, as a good time to embark on new endeavors, so I had planned to launch this blog on September 3rd, when my kids went back to school.
Was it John Lennon who said life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans? (someone go look that up for me; I’m time-crunched, here)
In my case, life is always getting in the way of my plans. WTF, y’all? I won’t even bore you with what’s been going on (most of you who would actually read this will know anyway), but for the last week, the thought of sitting down and writing just to write, or taking the time to think, form an opinion, and type it out, seemed to be an impossible dream. I’m just stealing the time now because it’s been a week since I planned to start, and I figured I had to get this in within the week.
One of my hold-ups is that I wanted this blog to be pretty, ’cause I’m all about the pretty, but I couldn’t find a layout on WP that I liked, and I don’t have the time right now to download one from somewhere else and figure out how to use it. If anyone can reassure me that it’s easy, and that I won’t be downloading an enormous amount of malware and spyware along with the layout, feel free to say something.
Shout-out to Stephen Colbert for the title of this post. Even though I used to say it all the time (and still do, when my kids aren’t around), like the good potty-mouthed pseudo-Southern gal that I am.
