Tribes

The usual folks have not been at the swimming pool but I've acquired a new, small tribe. Are you coming on Friday? It's kind of nice to be held accountable. The one guy swims in the lane next to me and, very often, motivates me to keep submerging my body in pursuit of another lap.

My new-ish coworker, Katie, belongs to the same gym that I do and she also likes Zumba. We hoped that David would bring his A-list of Zumba songs since he tries to mix it up with a variety of playlists. The B and C-lists are okay but they are not as compelling to us as the one with the Get Dirty warm-up song.

Well, we didn't get any of David's lists because he wasn't there yesterday. Katie whispered to me We have a sub but I recognized her and didn't panic. Konnie's routines have a thousand steps in them. She's soft-spoken and kills you softly. I was happy as all get out when she played Thriller. That routine is super fun and that tune/dance was worth the price of admission...

When my alarm goes off in the morning, I turn on the TV and watch a bit of CBS This Morning. Had a total MLB hangover which was made worse by listening to a snippet of a focus group with Millennials.  This one woman said that she was voting for Trump and was trying to debunk the myth of the "deplorable" Trump voter then said, in part, that the divide in the country is due to the African-American president of eight years. I was so proud of the young man who said that her statement showed that she didn't know the historical narrative behind the divisiveness...

Talked to one of my coworkers about trying to do my best to tackle as many tasks as I can with integrity and to try to emerge unscathed but I also told him that it's impossible to wrap everything up in a tidy bow. Oh my, you should have seen the smile that spread across his face followed by a most sincere chuckle.

To The Point

One of my colleagues had a death in the family so I ordered food from a Bosnian restaurant. Placed my order over the phone -- I'll take...two of this, two of that, one of those and another item separately.

Okay, bye. She didn't ask me for my name or give me the total or a time estimate.

I turned to my colleague and said Maybe she thought I was a prankster.

Went to the restaurant anyway and had to wait because the cheese and spinach pita that I had ordered was not ready.

Got the food then headed to my colleague's house where I chit-chatted with yet more colleagues and we discussed someone who'd recently resigned. She had too much, I said.

{Unintelligible sound} Every day is too much someone responded.

The Plan

Patti: What’s the plan for tomorrow?

'Drea: First, LOL, I plan to take an Epsom Salt bath. My calves are so sore that I was walking down the steps sideways. I did a bit of yoga so they are feeling better. You know that I wanna climb though. So, if the Ep doesn't do the trick, I might just gut it out anyway...

Colleague One: What is going on with you?


Mother: Are your legs sore?


Colleague Two: Are you okay?

Colleague Three: What happened?

Me: Too much exercise.

Colleague Three: That has never happened to me.

Me: Maybe it will.

Colleague Three: It hasn't happened yet.

Colleague Four: I should take a picture of you.


Mother: Whatever exercise you did, don't do it anymore.


My sore calves and penguin-like walk are courtesy of Kate's Tuesday night special. About 15 minutes into class Kate asked us, in the middle of jumping jacks, how we were doing but no one answered because, well, we had already exerted a lot of energy. Our inability to respond resulted in more jumping jacks -- not to mention the lunges and planks that followed.

In the end, I should know better than to take a class from someone who wasn't alive in 1980 or 1985 or 1989.

Been to any painful exciting classes lately?

Rush Hour In The Lap Lanes

I stepped on the scale this morning and it said that I was up two pounds but, during the course of the work day, two of my colleagues implied that I was wasting away. One was surprised that I wanted to lose another 15 pounds or so. Plus, yesterday, my cousin Chiquita asked me to stand up so that she could take a better look at me.

I would like the scale to move but I'm not stressing out about it like I used to because, voilà, check out these once snug pants.


It's ironic that most of the weight is coming off my lower half since I would like to lose a little poundage elsewhere. What do they say? People in hell want ice water. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...

I had every intention of swimming tonight but so did a lot of other people. It was rush hour in the lap lanes. I ended up walking in the lazy river for close to an hour and my legs felt waterlogged when it was all over. Actually, it felt as if they had fallen asleep and I had to wake them up on land.

Farewell With Food

Today was one of my colleagues' last day at work.

Two weeks notice seems like such a short time when you've worked with someone for more than 365 days.

Of course, there are some people that I work with that could walk out the door without delay and/or ceremony and my feelings would not be hurt.

Tim, the colleague in question, brought in two boxes of donuts today (((groan))) but he was also nice enough to bring me a container of fruit. How cool is that?


Yesterday, I ordered Tim a pretzel from Gus' Pretzels since it's one of his favorite joints. I decided to go with the pumpkin design. Don't ask why; it just amused me.

Did you say pumpkin?, the clerk asked. Mind you, her question came after I said that I wanted to order a pizza...The eyes rolled around in my car so it doesn't quite look like a pumpkin.

Later on, a group of us went to lunch at Basil Spice. I did some reconnaissance and decided that I would go with soup. I also ate half of a spring roll -- my first time trying a non-fried one.

Maybe I can just have broth-based soup whenever I dine out?


I like the decor in Basil Spice. The music, lighting and modest water fountain had me more than ready for a siesta.


Goodbye Tim, you were such an appropriate one...