Healthy Habits

I’ve been going to the gym for about five months now. And by “going to the gym”, I mean that I have seen the inside of the facility. I have lost a little weight (five pounds) and my clothes are starting to feel loose.

At least they did last week.

That was before the weekend.

Six meals on the weekend, right? How about a legendary McDonald’s meal which took me a full 24 hours to recover from. It was with me till the very end, if you know what I mean. Another meal consisted solely of peanut M&M’s and Mountain Dew. Then I did it again later, only worse, with peanut M&M’s and Cheeto’s.

Monday is a brand new day. To the gym! With it’s elliptical machines awaiting! With it’s five televisions all tuned in to stupid local news and I’m too scared to change the channel!

Monday is the 6:15 Pilates class.

“Good idea”, I think.

“Bet I could do the elliptical for 25 minutes BEFORE I do the class,” I think.

I was the youngest in the class, by far. No offense to the ladies in the class who will never read this, but it’s the truth. However, who do you suppose was the one person who couldn’t complete a single set? Whose legs were shaking like a very chilly chihuahua?

I will give you three guesses but the first two don’t count.

Please pass the chocolate……

Toe Tappin – A Musical Reflection

Stayin Alive, in my opinion, is one of the greatest songs ever recorded. It can not be made better by a modern re-mix. The bass line is so hot, so unique, and so catchy, that whenever I hear the song, if I’m in public, I have to make a conscious effort to not dance.

Another song that can not be improved upon, and that I can not resist, is Signed, Sealed, Delivered. Would you agree?

Experience affects a song also. Kind of like when you grow up knowing a really evil girl named Tammy, you hate hate hate the name Tammy. Or if your mom made you sit at the table for three hours to finish your spinach, you probably despise that particular vegetable.

Whenever I hear Mariah Carey’s Hero, or pretty much anything in her pre-ghetto era, I think of Sarah, and of the Mariah Christmas cd she got for me one year. And the boxers that came with them. She came to the house, just to drop them by.

Anything by the BeeGee’s makes me laugh and remember Laura, Josh, Mike and I, d-d-d-dancing and jive talkin to their number one hits.

Ivy and Fountain’s of Wayne make me think of a lost friend.

Anything by Third Day makes me think of Alece.

I’m sure there are many other memories and many other songs.

Oh yeah, the Water Buffalo Song = Debi.

I grew up around a lot of music. There was always music playing in the house, or we would be singing while we were doing dishes, and in the car, we took turns picking the songs we were going to sing. Dad bought up every tv special offer for oldies collections.

During the week we were awakened by mom’s version of Reveille; It’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up this morning! And on the weekend it was dad’s oldies but goodies, or worship music, being blasted suddenly and at painful levels to wake us up. He always thought it was very funny. And in retrospect, I guess it was pretty funny.

If you play cards with us, random songs will break out, picked up from bits of conversation. One of the most common ones, happens because there is so much number reciting in card playing. It comes from Sesame Street. “One, two, three…. four, five, six….seven, eight, nine…. ten, eleven, twelve… little lady bugs….. at the lady bug picnic.”

Then of course, there are the stupid, hateful songs that you can not get out of your head. Have you seen the commercial where the guy is humming Culture Club’s “Karma Khameleon” and tells another guy that it’s “Where’s Da Hood At?” I can not tell you how many hours everyday I spend singing “Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, where’s the hood at? Where’s the hood? Where’s it at?”

So tell me, what are some songs that are special to you, and what’s the story to go with them?

Last Day

The new look is to commemorate Mike’s last day at Flying Dog Helicopters. Monday morning he’ll be flying to Texas to begin a new flying adventure. Congratulations, Mike, on ending this chapter and starting a new one. We’re all proud of you.

If you’d like to say something to Mike, leave a comment here for him.

Dining in Fabulous Key Largo

So Mike and I thought we would share a nice dinner out in Key Largo. Apparently we enjoy torture, or maybe we just needed a little reminder of all the things we’ll miss. Like, painfully slow service.

We dined at Bogie’s. Bogie, for all you young folks, is a charming nickname for Humphrey Bogart. Bogart starred in the film Key Largo, which was not filmed at this restaurant. We sat on the patio, near the pool. It was a cool evening, the sun had already set, and we listened to the waterfall and the piano player in the dining room.

We weren’t in a hurry, and good thing too, because we waited 20 minutes before someone took our drink order and brought menus. We chatted, laughed at the cat prowling around the tables, looking for scraps, and memorized the menus. Much later, the nice, but obviously overworked waitress, took our order. It was equally obvious from the people sitting around us, that we had only begun waiting.

Twenty minutes later, one of the plastic patio dining tables flew across the floor. Followed closely by a terrified cat. The table didn’t fly on it’s own; it was thrown by a big burly man thing. I’m guessing he probably was upset at the slothful service, but it was hard to tell between all the F bombs. He yelled, loudly, profanely, unintelligibly, all the way across the dining area, through the pool area, and to his hotel room.

We laughed at how stupid he looked and sounded. Then we mocked him a little bit. Very entertaining. The table to our right demanded to speak with a manager. The waitress didn’t expect them to pay for their food, did she? We couldn’t mock them out loud, obviously, but we rolled our eyes. I mean, don’t go out to eat in the Keys if you’re expecting actual service. That’s like going to Arizona to see their world famous waterfalls; or going to Washington D.C. and being shocked by the surprising amount of government buildings.

Finally the food arrived. Yellowtailed snapper, encrusted with Parmesan, drizzled with a key lime sauce and tomato salsa, with a side of steamed veggies and rice pilaf. Moments later a nice old lady (I’m just assuming she was nice, of course) was seated directly to the left of us. She must have been having sinus problems while she was putting on her perfume.

“I just can’t smell it! I’ll just put on a couple dozen more spritzes, just in case.”

Seriously. It was so strong, I couldn’t smell my food, which was mere inches from my face. I kept looking in her direction, willing the winds to change. It didn’t work.

“What a night.” I said.

“Yeah.” Mike agreed.

“First a restaurant cat, then crazy F man, now this.” I nodded in stinky lady’s direction.

“Hm.” He agreed again with a mouthful of food.

I took a bite of my rice. While I was chewing it, I glanced at stinky lady again.

“So, how far away do you think she is? Six feet?”

Mike smiled. “More like ten. Why? You gonna put this in your blog?”

A Proud Member of the Witness Protection Program

Well, not really. But I’m sure people are starting to wonder.

After all, neither one of us are in the military. And is it really necessary to move six times in as many years unless you’re in one of these programs?

In case you haven’t heard, move number seven is right around the corner. We wouldn’t want to lose our 1 giant move a year average, now would we.

If you’ve spent any time reading my blog, you know how fond I am of the Keys. The best thing about being here has been my job. More accurately, the people I work with. I sincerely think I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for them. While Mike’s situation continued to get worse by simply not improving at all, I received support, friendship and laughter from those I work with.

So my previous post actually had a purpose. Mike has an opportunity that will pay significantly more, give him more hours, and allow him to simply fly. No more dealing with tourists, prices, advertising, personal favors, marketing, fuel trips, or dodging hurricanes. The nature of the job means he will basically be on the road. Which meant that I could pick where I wanted to live based on pretty much nothing. That left the whole of the contigious United States. Much too big an area.

First, the West coast got whittled off. Mike’s choice. Louisiana and Mississippi got singled out as definate no’s. Been there. Done that. Probably worse than the Keys. Then we talked about friends and family. This meant places like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois…… It was too much to think about the people, because of course I want to live near everybody! So we moved on to more practical issues. Where was Mike going to do most of his flying, where was the most opportunity going to be for me, and who didn’t have 8 months of winter or a season for hurricanes.

Nashville, Tennesee seemed like the best choice. It was both a hard choice and an easy one. We’ll be living near Danny and Kristy again, who I feel lucky to count as friends. Truly. Also, quite conveniently arranged by God, Debi lives a mere two hour drive away.

So it’s been decided. Mike is moving on, on the 20th of this month. My last week will be the first week of May. Since nobody made it down to the Keys (don’t worry, you didn’t miss much) you can all start planning trips to Nashville. I look forward to seeing you there!