Uncategorized Archives - Page 11 of 12

Month of fun: Day 16

September 16, 2011

Fun thing for the day: I pulled on my ugly Nikes and went for a run.

Yeah, you heard me. A run was my fun thing for the day. That’s pretty shocking coming from me, since I’ve suffered from a tragic running allergy for many years. (Don’t laugh. Someday there will be a telethon for people like me, and I’ll ask you for money.)

It’s only recently that I started to overcome this severe, but extremely rare, medical condition.

I was slowly making progress, doing my run/walk thing a few times a week. And just as I was making the transition from “Do I have to go running?” to “Yay, I get to go running!”, I injured myself.

Somehow I did something mean to that tendon that wraps underneath your foot from one side of the ankle to the other, and it was incredibly painful. So I took a couple weeks off, felt better, and yesterday I did a quick test run.

This morning I was back in action! I jogged out the door, ran around Ruth Hardy Park and started the day with a little sweat.

OK, a lot of sweat.

It felt so good to be in motion, planting my feet down and springing forward, all while listening to old-school De La Soul. And as I made my way back home, a guy on the street called out to me, “Bitchin’ shoes!”

Month of fun: Day 15

September 15, 2011

Today I took my gas grill for a walk down one of the busiest streets in Palm Springs.

Normally I wouldn’t advocate pushing a filthy grill down the street as a fun activity. But the situation was just so ridiculous, so stupid and so hilarious, it ended up being a highlight of my day.

Here’s how it happened:

The Husband and I were in the home stretch of our great migration. All I had to do was make a final walk-through of the old apartment, hand over the keys to the landlord and go home to my new place. I was just about to lock the door when I remembered the gas grill on the back patio.

The ridiculously oversized gas grill. The cumbersome, heavy gas grill. The freakin’ albatross of gas grills.

I tried every which way to load the stupid thing into The Husband’s Honda Civic, but it just wasn’t happening. The trunk looked like a sweet Kentucky girl making her first porn — it actually puckered up and recoiled at the sight of the BBQ. There was no way that thing was going in that hole.

Now I was in a pickle. I had a very limited amount of time left to hand over the keys to the landlady. But the grill had to be gone before I could hand over the keys. And the grill wouldn’t fit in my vehicle. I do have friends with trucks. But I didn’t know anyone who could give me a hand in the middle of a workday on such short notice.

I brainstormed a few options: Call an airport taxi van. Beg a nearby moving company for a cheap rate on one item. Make a “for sale” sign and try to sell the grill real quick.

In the end, there was only one thing I could do. I pushed the grill more than a mile down the street to my new apartment. In 100+ degree weather. While I was wearing a dress and high heels.

I don’t know if you’ve ever pushed a grill for any long distance, but let me tell you, it is miserable. Grills are not built to be strollers. They shake and rumble. The wheels get stuck. The metal clangs with a fierceness that pierces right through the eardrum, rattling the threads that hold brain to skull.

It’s like pushing the bad shopping cart at WalMart — except the cart is full of iron anvils and you’re on an endless stretch of bumpy asphalt in hell. Oh, and Satan is carrying a stopwatch.

About halfway home, the grill got stuck in an empty lot. The wheels sagged in the soft sand. Broken glass cracked under my shoes. I almost tripped and fell over a couple of broken concrete blocks. A man passing by stopped and lifted the grill enough to get it back on track. I thanked him and moved on.

In front of the hospital, a white-haired security guard in a golf cart eased to a stop. “Where ya’ goin’ with that barbecue?”

I quickly explained that it was my barbecue. I was simply moving it from one apartment to another because it wouldn’t fit in my car.

“Wanna lift?” he said.

The back of the golf cart flipped out to make a wide, padded bench, and we hoisted the grill onto that surface. The security guard then drove me to the edges of the hospital property, as far as he was allowed to go.

“I hope that helps a little,” he said.

“Oh, it did,” I assured him, and then I thanked him profusely.

“I just hate to see a pretty woman pushing a grill down the street,” he said.

“Well, who doesn’t?”

Then he asked me out on a date. I declined and waved goodbye.

I felt like there was some sort of lesson to be learned here. This was either a story of determination — or it was proof that I keep pushing my burdens around.

Month of fun: Days 10-14

September 14, 2011

MOVING. That is all I have been doing lately. Every waking moment has been consumed by this great migration: Sorting, packing, hauling, lifting, loading, unpacking, cleaning. And there couldn’t be a worse time to relocate in the desert. I felt like I could ignite at any second.

I’m also on a debt diet, trying to rein in my spending while I save up money for bigger projects and investments. So I haven’t made any wacky, frivolous purchases.

On top of that, I’m doing a wheat-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free, low-fat, low-cal (and many other hyphenated words) detox right now. So I couldn’t even crack open a cold beer on moving day, toast the new apartment with a glass of bubbly or indulge in some well-deserved dark chocolate. Hrumph.

Put all of that together, and you don’t have a lot of room for fun — not even when you’re forcing it. I have been grumpy and snippy and sweaty for almost a week straight. It’s a wonder I’m still married.

Day 10

Lowlight: Packing. How is it possible to spend one year of my life with just a backpack, yet have an entire apartment crammed full of stuff? Where did it all come from? Why am I putting it in boxes?

Highlight: The final night in our tiny, smelly apartment! I celebrated by finally using the Lush Comforter bubble bar that I’ve been saving for a special occasion. It smells like blackcurrant and magically turns the bath water pleasantly purple with stacks of creamy bubbles. It’s like submerging yourself in straight-up Prozac.

Day 11

Lowlight: Instead of hiring a moving van, The Husband and I opted to make hundreds of trips back and forth in his Honda Civic hatchback. This is officially the last time I will ever follow-through on one of our “bright” ideas.

Highlight: Our friends Shad and Xochitl came over with their SUV to give us a hand with the big stuff. With the mattress, we simply stuck it on top of the vehicle. No rope, because we’re badasses like that. (Also because we didn’t have any rope.) Then we rolled down the windows and desperately clung to the bed as we rolled through town. Some people might call that “illegal.” I call it “minimalist.”

Here’s Xochitl, my partner in crime.

Day 12

Lowlight: All the stuff that goes along with moving, including piles of boxes, the inability to locate anything important and two severely traumatized pets who wouldn’t come out from under the bed.

Highlight: First full day in the new place! I unpacked enough kitchen supplies to make a huge batch of soup, so the apartment would smell like a home. The scent also lured in a couple of neighbors who wanted to find out what I was cooking.

Day 13

Lowlight: Cleaning the old apartment. Cleaning until my nails were stripped and my skin began flaking off. Cleaning until I was pale and withered.

Apparently, what sunlight does to vampires, that’s what cleaning does to me.

Highlight: Taking my dog, Lemon, out for a walk in the thunderstorm. I hate that I’m one of those people who puts her dog in a raincoat, but alas, I am — much to the delight of my cooing, giggling neighbors.

Here’s an old photo of Lemon in her action fleece. (She doesn’t hang around long enough in the rain for a photo.)

Day 14

Lowlight: More cleaning in an effort to get our deposit back. I personally consider the deposit to be a renter’s tax, so I dismiss it as a lost cause. I know it’s rare to actually receive the full amount back, and if you believe that time is more important than money (which I do), then why waste it on scrubbing down an old space?

The Husband, however, would have Magic Erasers surgically implanted on his hands if he could. He’d be Edward MagicEraserHands, and he’d star in the lamest Tim Burton movie ever. He believes in the deposit, and he is willing to fight for it.

So we cleaned. And cleaned. And I think we left the place in better condition than when we moved in.

Highlight: Sat on the patio of my new home and savored a cup of steamy hot tea. Home sweet home at last.

Month of fun: Day 8

September 8, 2011

When I was little, I put swimming pools in the same category as tiaras and castles. Pretty, but completely unattainable. And whenever I saw a TV show where the kids had a pool at school, forget it — that was as fictional as Charlie’s Chocolate Factory.

The only pool I knew was at the Huber Heights YMCA, a dangerous bike ride away from where I lived. The pool was so thick with kids and crumpled Funyuns packages, you could barely see the water. Lusty, greasy teenagers humped against the metal bars that lined the stairs. The smell of urine overwhelmed the chlorine.

My parents sacrificed a lot to get me a summer membership, so I went, albeit reluctantly. It’s not that I didn’t like to swim. I just didn’t like to swim there.

So now I consider it the ultimate luxury to live in a place with a swimming pool — clean and hump-free! — where I can cannonball, dive and doggy paddle 365 days a year.

It is not my swimming pool, but it feels like it is. Nobody in the complex really uses it. Maybe for people who grew up with sunshine and swimming pools, the shockingly teal ribbon has faded into the background. Maybe it seems too boring and familiar. Maybe they don’t remember the sheer joy that comes from floating on your back, drifting, watching the palm trees.

For me, it’s a baptism. The pool is my River Jordan. It’s like getting a slippery new skin.

The Husband doesn’t understand. He doesn’t like doing laps. He doesn’t like splashing around. He doesn’t even like floating. Whenever I coerce him into the pool, he just stands there and looks at me expectantly, like “Now what?” Until I hit him over the head with a pool noodle.

Today, after packing and hauling boxes over to the new apartment, just when I thought I couldn’t move another muscle, I jumped into the pool and was instantly reborn.

Month of fun: Day 6

September 6, 2011

I mailed my old iPod to Nepal!

My friend Jehan works at an orphanage with some of the most wonderful kids in Kathmandu — and those kids love to boogie to Bollywood tunes. When Jehan put out a call for a couple of iPods to help entertain the kids, I had just the thing for the job.

Nepal, meet my old mini, Bootsy.