The latest

I came home yesterday to find a note stuck in my door from my tenant. It read "I've moved." It said other stuff too...maybe I'll just put it in its entirety in here at some point. I can't even get into it, it enrages me so.

I'm not exactly sorry to see him go. He was, in a word, a dick. Being a dick, none of this is particularly out of character, I suppose.

Here's what he did wrong.

1. He didn't give me a month's notice.
2. He didn't pay his last month's rent.
3. He instructed me to 'keep the damn deposit.'
4. He left behind...a couple lawnmowers, a couple snow blowers, rakes and shovels, hedge trimmers, fishing poles, a compost heap, several large bags of top soil, a couple quarter barrel buckets, his television and stand, coffee table, kitchen table and chairs, pots and pans, two dressers...

Of course, according to him there is 'not much cleaning left, manageable furniture items only.' Oh, and that I could make 'good use' of the equipment that's left.

But, that's not how I see it. What I have is a crapload of furniture I now have to get rid of, and a garage full of stuff I don't need.

So now I need to get rid of all of this and try and get the apartment ready for a new tenant, without the rent that is duly mine. And, I don't know if you realize this, my amigos, but it doesn't get much more difficult to rent a place than the months of November, December and January.

See, when I bought this place it was in no small part because of the rental unit. This is part of my income. I always kept my savings padded in case I ever had to go without that income, so I'm not in dire straights. But he surely didn't leave me in a good place either. It was just plain rotten.

I always thought he was strange. I'm actually glad he's not my tenant anymore. But I never envisioned him simply abandoning the place. I was always open and approachable. He never once indicated he was unhappy.

Honestly, I believe he's just full of rage. I think he thinks he's teaching me some sort of lesson, the way that people who are passive aggressive think their little actions serve some greater design, when all they're really doing is making themselves look like an asshole.

Anyway, that's what's up with me. Sucks, don't it.

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"Someone called me a redneck woman once, and you know what I said back? I said 'Thank you!'"

~ Sarah Palin


REDNECK
NOUN
Offensive Slang

1. Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.
2. A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.

~ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Election Gripes

First of all, someone stole my Obama sign from my front yard. Not just mine, either, but mine and several (though not all) Obama signs in the neighborhood. The few McCain signs were left as is.

I'd planned for this moment. I'd bought 4 signs, put one out on my yard, gave one to a neighbor and held on to the other two as back up.

See, back in 2004, some horse's ass at the YMCA peeled my John Kerry bumper sticker right off the back of my car. I'm positive where it happened, and you could even see where they'd picked at every corner until they found one they could get their grimy nails under.

Not much makes me angry, but stuff like this I find absolutely infuriating. I mean, it makes my blood absolutely boil, and for many reasons. First, it's just plain wrong. It's stealing, or vandalism, or both. Second, it's something that I would never do in my wildest dreams. I think George Bush is the spawn of Satan. I think Dick Cheney IS Satan. Don't get me started on Palin and McCain. But I'd never in a million years actually physically remove a bumper sticker or yard sign. You just don't do it. Thirdly, the people who do this are spineless weenies who don't have the guts to ever do any of these things in the light of day, or when I'm present, or both. At least the bunghole who yelled "Feingold SUCKS" at me while he was behind me at the drive through at Culver's stood the chance that I may retaliate (I didn't). Of course, I'm also quite sure he wouldn't have yelled such a thing if I hadn't been alone in my car, or if I'd been a man. Yeah, those tough guys yelling crap at women. Very impressive.

I have no problem when people disagree with me politically. But to take something of mine...what's the point? Am I not going to vote now? Or...do they think these things are irreplaceable? Are they trying to scare me?

My neighbor and I got together though, and our plan is that we take our signs down after dark. My neighbor is up before dawn, and he puts them out again. Take that, sign stealers!

I have 2 bumper stickers on my car. One that says "Obama '08" and one that says "Got hope? www.barackobama.com." I've gotten some dirty looks. I feel a certain amount of vulnerability, especially since this election is near a close and things have gotten a bit ugly. But it's important to me that I show my support, and I have every right to do so.

Now, I'm not prone to hyperbole, so keep that in mind when I tell you this story. None of it is exaggerated.

I make a habit of being a conscientious driver. I've been driving especially conscientiously since I put the bumper sticker on (and thankfully it's been there for months and months). It may sound silly, but I feel somehow that I'm representin'.

So yesterday I hit the road to get to my WW meeting. It's during the height of rush hour, and I have a particularly speedy, quiet way to get there. I actually end up driving through the neighborhood where I grew up. These are very quiet, narrow streets. The speed limit is 25, with good reason. There is a grade school nearby, and it always has been a kid-centric area. So I'm driving down the road, listening to the radio, probably going about 25, though it's actually hard to reach that speed because of the numerous stop signs. There is a red truck behind me. I stop at a 4 way intersection. I'm not a "roll through" stopper. I'm not a "slow down" person. When it says stop, I stop.

So, I stopped at this intersection. Just as I'm pulling forward, the red truck behind me floors it, runs the stop sign and passes me. Passes me. On a quiet street. At 5:00 in the afternoon. As I turned in disbelief I saw he was muttering something, God knows what, and that the back of his truck was covered in bumper stickers. He was actually moving so quickly that the only word I was able to pick up was "republican."

So he sped down the street, and proceeded to run another stop sign while turning left. I was slack-jawed, to be honest. And pissed of course. This is the neighborhood where I grew up. There are children everywhere. I mean, honestly, was it so disturbing to him to have an Obama supporter in front of him that he felt the need to act the way he did?

Of course, what usually happened in these situations happened. He was stopped at a red light and I pulled up right next to him (meaning, of course, that his little episode did nothing more than burn gas, because he didn't end up any further ahead than I). He was going straight, I was turning right, so I took the opportunity, as I was checking for ongoing traffic, to pull ahead, wait until he looked in my direction, smile and flip him off.

Yes, I flipped him off. This isn't a normal habit. This isn't something I do other than jokingly to family and friends. And it's something that I somewhat regret because, as I said, I'm representin'. But amigos, it was just something I had to do. It actually was quite funny, because I don't think the guy had any idea that I was the person he had dissed. See, when he looked at me, I smiled, and he smiled back. :) That's what made my middle finger gesture so rewarding. The look on his face was priceless. It looked like he was thinking "Why did that woman just flip me off?" A mixture of shock and puzzlement. Then I was able to turn right and proceed on my merry way.

Immature? Sure. Not representin'? Yeah, sorry to say. Rewarding? You betcha.

I did yard work!

Well Amigos, the weight loss is going quite well. I had a moderate gain a couple weeks back, but I didn't let it get me down. I got right back on that horse and proceeded to lose the amount I had gained and then some a week later.

I'm definitely feeling this one physically. Know one of the reasons I know that to be? I raked on Sunday. I hate raking. To me the worst part of home ownership is the fact that I have a yard. But I was sitting inside watching television, and it was a beautiful day. I'd already walked the dogs for almost an hour and had met some friends for coffee so my morning wasn't exactly dull. But all I could think about was getting out there and enjoying the day and raking all these dang leaves off my lawn.

Let me back up here a second. One thing I'd like to say, and I realize there isn't a darned thing I can do about it, but none of the leaves that are on my lawn come from any trees on my property. I have 2 trees on my property. The one in front is a maple tree, which remains green until, oh, Christmas, and then overnight turns yellow, and then, again overnight, drops its leaves. It stands there, mocking me, hanging on to every damn leaf, while every tree around it is bare. The other tree I have on my property is a very long, lean crab tree. This tree has not lost any of its leaves either, though without the mockery.

But what was covering my front yard? Every other kind of leaf imaginable. Not exclusively on my yard of course, they're on everyone's yard. But for a person who has the least amount of foliage on their lot, and undoubtedly the smallest house by a huge margin, I certainly do amass more than my fair share of leaves. I keep hoping, sadly, that some neighbor will take pity on me, realizing that I am, in fact, raking the leaves from THEIR trees, and come to my rescue. But alas, no.

But Sunday I didn't mind. I have a rake with an extra-wide span and I was able to clear the lawn in a relatively short time, and without getting sore or winded or anything. And when all was said and done and the leaves were raked into the street (and getting caught in a stiff breeze and blowing across the street to my neighbors' yards, much to my glee), I figured I'd better mow the lawn. See, with a longer lawn (and my lawn is always longer because my tenant is supposed to mow it and he doesn't) you tend to have lots of leaves that get stuck and it's quite hard to rake. So I went into the garage, dug out my lawnmower (my tenant has several, since it's what he does for a living, though you'd never know it), plugged it in (yes, I have an electric mower, and I couldn't be happier with it), and away I went. I have to say, the sense of accomplishment when all was said and done was most satisifying.

And the best thing of all is that I didn't mind doing this physically. Neither of these things are chores I care to do, but when you're not carrying around as much excess weight, they don't seem so bad.

Possibly the best thing of all is that I could do all this and not think twice about my knee. Honestly Amigos, I think often about how much better I feel. In the end I think my knee was just really, really bad. I shudder to think how much it would have hurt had I done these same chores last year.

I've had a couple other interesting changes. I find I have many, many more clothes than I ever realized. I had been dressing in old stand-bys. You know, the clothes you can wear that don't make it look or feel like you've gained weight. I have a navy blue sweater that I wore a lot, and convinced myself that because it was quite old and I'd worn it years ago, I hadn't put on that much weight. But I came to rely on things like that more and more, and didn't wear a lot of my clothes that were more iffy. But now, pretty much anything in my closet is fair game.

Pants, though, that's another story. Right now I have essentially 1 pair of pants that fit, and they're not going to be fitting me much longer unless I manage to shrink them significantly. The thing is, it's not like I've got money to throw around, so I may need to invest in some belts (unless belts cost more than pants...).

This is weird amigos, just plain weird.

I still fight that demon though. Yesterday I went way overboard on points. I logged everything as I should, but boy can I put it away at night. I ate an entire acorn squash (not difficult, it's one of my favorite things, has very few points, and is cheap and plentiful), a spinach salad, a bowl fo veggie chili, a few weight watchers 1 point snack bars (few = 4), and a big bowl of popcorn. This was spread out over the evening, and I was up pretty late, but still, jeez...a girl can't eat like that all the time! But I was having one of those days where no matter what I ate I just never felt satisfied, so I kept looking for the thing that would do the trick. I gave up eventually and went to bed.

But, today is a new day. Just because I overdid it last night does not mean it's going to happen tonight. Nor does it mean that I've lost hope. It just means I'm an overeater, and I'll be fighting that my entire life, so I'd better figure out how to cope. So far so good!

If I had a band...

Not that I'd ever have a band. I don't play a musical instrument. I do sing, but not in any type of way that would make me worthy of actually performing for people. But I do have a ton of names for potential bands. I was almost hesitant to write this post because suppose someone somewhere hears one of these names and likes it, starts to use it as their band name, and then they achieve fame and fortune without ever giving props to me about it? But then I figured, it would all be documented on this interweb business, and also, why would I begrudge someone a cool band name I happened to dream up? It's not like I'm going to use it.

No idea how this all started, but have you ever said something and thought that it would make a great band name? Or a great name for a bar? I had an idea for a bar. I was going to call it "The Space Bar." Like a space bar on a keyboard, but it could also be like outer space.

Anyway, one day years ago I ran into the woman who lived downstairs from me. Her name was Sashi and she used to dye her hair purple. So I asked my roommate at the time what she thought of Sashi's dye job, and it occurred to me that it was a GREAT name for a band. Sashi's Dye Job.

Well, some people at work had the same idea and we started to keep a running list of potential band names. Like someone would say something, and someone else would seize on it as being a good band name. Not all of these names originated that way, but a good chunk of them. Here are a few:

1. Beat the Hese. I worked with a guy whose last name was Heser, and I believe I was competing with him in a football pool? Anyway, voila. Band name.

2. Shift the Bubble. This had something to do with the NCAA basketball playoffs, which teams were 'on the bubble,' that kind of thing.

3. Baloney Pony. Origin unknown.

4. Long Yellow Pad. Because we keep the band names listed on a long yellow pad of paper.

5. Gone Postal. 'Nuff said.

6. Eight Grade Nun. There are a lot of Catholics here.

7. Squishy Bottom. A coworker commented that the bottom of her stapler was squishy.

8. Howard Sprague's Groovy Bachelor Pad. Reference to the Andy Griffith show.

9. Silent Rhythm. See #3.

10. Rebellious Cog. Referring to someone who refused to be a 'cog in a wheel of the machine.'

11. Whitehurst. Green Bay quarterback from 1977-1983.

12. Knife Wielding Savages. No clue.

13. Credit the Cat. Again, no idea.

14. Ramen Phase. Referencing the phase that all college students or young poor people go through when they eat lots and lots of Ramen noodles.

15. Chester Marcol. Former Packers place kicker. Yeah, we're Packer fans here.

16. Scotty Under the Sink. Refers to a conversation overheard by a friend of mine while on staying at a bed and breakfast. Some family strife that led to their youngest child hiding under the sink and not coming out.

17. Adam Slim. A descriptor of a certain type of slim resembling a guy named Adam.

18. Gas the Bird. One of mine. I'll explain in some other post.

19. Steak Boy. I called my friend Tim that because of his highly anticipated dinner at Coerper's 5 O'Clock Club, known for their steaks.

20. Spaetzle. German dumplings/noodles.

Well, those are the best of them. I've had this list for years and years and years. Always makes me laugh.

But please, if you happen to hear a song by Sashi's Dye Job on the radio, please tell me. I've got some suing to do.

Challenges

I've had a few over the last few days. The weekend is usually a challenge in and of itself, what with having a lack of routine and all. Friday and Saturday were OK. Sunday wasn't bad, but it was indeed a major challenge.

Sunday started with a fundraiser, a pancake breakfast (barkfest, as we call it) to benefit the adoption center. I didn't partake of the actual breakfast since I was working the event, but I could have. And I wanted to. Syrup and I are old, dear friends.

But I didn't. I had a cup of coffee, a banana and a WW 2 point bar.

The event was over by noon and I was famished, as was my friend who volunteered with me. We wanted to grab lunch, so after tossing around a few ideas, we went to Qdoba. I had a naked bean burrito (w/o cheese or sour cream, but w/a dollop of guacamole), which in the vast scheme of things isn't all that bad points-wise.

So I figured I was doing fine. But then my sister called me later. There's a deal among 25 participating restaurants in town where you get a 3 course meal for $25 throughout the month of October. Well, it was such a good deal and we both really wanted to go to Il Mito, so we did. I had a salad with field greens, artichoke hearts, fresh mushrooms and parmesan cheese in a lemony dressing. They also bring out fresh bread and fresh olive oil with that one really good cheese...it'll come to me...and I had some of that. Not too much, but some.

My entree was a roasted vegetable pizza, of which I ate half, and for dessert I had some cappuccino gelato (which was as good as it sounds).

So, while I was relatively happy with my choices, and most definitely happy with the food, anyone on WW would realize that going out to eat twice in one day is a bit extravagant on the old points (I dipped heavily into my weekly allotment of extras).

Yesterday went quite well, but now today we're having a bake sale at work as a fundraiser. I made dream bars for the event (butter, flour, salt, eggs, coconut, walnuts and brown sugar, in varying amounts--it ends up being a sweet salty melt in your mouth taste explosion). I only ate 1 sorry one (and I cut them very small) that didn't look suitable for the event. During the bake sale I bought a ridiculously tasty (though reasonably sized) brownie.

But, I haven't gone back and have no intention of buying anything else there and am just counting down the minutes until all the goodies are gone. They've even done the usual "end of bake sale half off until it's gone" email posting. I STILL haven't gone back in there, and I won't, dammit.

So, those were my challenges this week. Personally I think I met them head on and successfully defeated them. Whether the scale agrees with me or not is another thing, but you know what? Even if it doesn't, even if I gain, or stay the same this week, I won't be defeated because I came through knowing that I did the absolute best that I could and I didn't give in. And it wasn't like it's painful to do. It's the right thing to do. I am, as always, a bit resentful that I can't just eat whatever the hell I want.

But, I had some pretty awesome meals and I just feel good about the whole thing. So, when I face the scale on Thursday night I'm ready for whatever it shows me.

This 'n that

Hey Amigos,

I should really try and update this more often. Well, that's a bit ballsy of me, seeing as it makes the assumption that others are reading this often enough that they want to hear more from me. That could be true, but I shouldn't assume it.

I don't have an excuse for being silent, I just never got around to writing.

I posted a healthy loss last week, and posted the exact same amount as a gain last night. I'm not surprised. I wasn't exactly living a Bacchanalian existence this last week, but I certainly wasn't following any sort of real 'plan.' I had several things that caused this gain. Maybe if it had been one of these things it wouldn't have happened, but put them altogether and you've got a gain baby.

1. I didn't track my points (that is, I didn't log what I was eating and the points value of what I was eating).

2. Rather than cooking, I resorted to convenience foods. Not fast food or anything like that, but some premade sushi, a couple things from the Outpost deli, that sort of stuff.

3. Speaking of Outpost, I ate a few too many of their cookies. They're homemade all natural cookies, and I sometimes indulge myself because you can buy just one, but it's not something I should do regularly; and I obviously overdid it this week.

4. I didn't exercise enough.

5. I wasn't vigilant about drinking water.

So, you put all that stuff together, and what do you have? A gain.

On the interesting side, I gained the EXACT same amount I'd lost the previous week. So psychologically that is good because I can sort of convince myself that the past week didn't really happen. I'm exactly where I was a couple weeks ago and I can just pick up from here, which is exactly what I intend to do.

I'm not surprised I've lost a bit of steam. I've been going at this for 7 months now, and while I'm still quite satisfied with the program, I guess I felt tempted to push the envelope a bit. See what I could get away with.

Well, I learned a lot by doing so. My grip on my weight loss is tenuous and I need to be ever vigilant. I still see room for a little indulgence, but I need to maybe examine why I overdo the indulging thing every now and then. And I especially need to be more vigilant about getting out and moving around. I can almost guarantee that if I'd exercised better over the last week I wouldn't have gained, or at least not that amount.

And speaking of exercise, I just got back from my walk around campus. I'm going to try and do it again this afternoon. It's funny though, it's not that warm, but I still get awfully sweaty when I'm walking in the full sunlight (and there's not a cloud in the sky). I'd say my walk, which is about a mile, is about 1/3 in the shade and 2/3 in the sun. So I do come back to my desk a bit sweaty. But it feels so good to get my blood pumping. Something funny, I can tell that I didn't walk last week. It was just a teeny bit more difficult than normal. I'm sure my body reverted back to where it was. It's kind of done that all over the place, hasn't it.

Not much else is new amigos. I've got another busy weekend, but thankfully a friend is taking my 4 hour shift at the adoption center on Sunday. I took hers last week, a very last minute thing (the original sub didn't show), and was thrilled when she could do mine.

I steam cleaned my carpets over the weekend. I know that's not the most exciting thing, but it is one of those chores where you really feel a sense of accomplishment when you're through. I just rented a little Rug Doctor for a day and did the living room and kitchen (yes, my kitchen is carpeted; the owners installed brand new berber carpeting before I moved in; it's ridiculous but I haven't felt like changing it just yet). You should see the water when the canister fills up...nothing short of amazing, really. I also cleaned and polished my leather couch. The animals have done a number on it and it needed it BAD. I plan on bringing that into my regular cleaning rotation.

I'm sort of a changed person lately when it comes to cleaning. I'd say maybe in the last 6 months to a year I've just become a tidier person. I do my dishes more regularly, I vacuum more regularly, I tend to not leave stuff lying around. Except clothes. I haven't quite figured out the clothes sitch just yet.

I'm just really bad with figuring out what goes where. My bedroom has 2 closets; one is quite largish. It's not really a walk in, although you can walk into it, so maybe it is, it's just small. The other is an average closet. And i have a dresser and a bureau. But the thing is, I have no concept of what should go where. I've got bras over in one drawer, and undies and socks each have their own drawers. But everything else is a crap shoot. I have no idea how to best utilize the space; like what I should hang, where I should put sweaters, should I change things out with the seasons.

Yeah, I'm pretty lame that way. So a lot of the time I just have clothes around my bedroom. Folded and clean, mind you (that, like bras and undies, has a permanent space), just disorganized and not really put anywhere. I'm hopeless with arranging my clothes! And it's not like I'm not organized in the kitchen, because I am, relatively (you have to be with as little space as I have in my kitchen), but the clothes thing just has me stymied.

I'm tempted, though I never would, to hire an organizer. Don't sweat it amigos, I'm not going to do it, because in the end it seems foolish and should be something I can do on my own and I don't have money to spend on something like that. I am going to have to do some research, dig through some old Real Simple magazines, maybe watch an infomercial...

Whoah, jumped the track there didn't I...but I guess it's all tied in. Self improvement tends to have a ripple effect, don't you think?

Thoughts of a Big Loser on "The Biggest Loser"

As I'm sure many people of the fat persuasion have done, I've watched a couple episodes of this season's Biggest Loser. I watched probably two episodes over the entire course of the series. But this year, seeing as I've joined WW and all, and I'm in a 'try and watch as many success stories/cautionary tales about obesity as possible to help keep me on track' phase, I had a bit more of an interest.

I'm pretty sure any interest I had in it has been stepped on and flattened by the banality of the show. Bottom line, it's crap reality programming, plain and simple.

(Let me take a moment to apologize to anyone reading this who likes the show...I mean no offense; I watch my own fair share of less than stellar programming, America's Funniest Home Videos for one, so I'd never judge another person by what they're watching; if you like it, watch away)

I have a lot of problems with this show. I have more problems with it than I can fit in one blog entry (and expect anyone to actually read it). So I'll try and be brief about them.

1. They rarely, if ever, show people eating food. One episode had the contestants cooking, with the help of Rocco Dispiritoroony or whatever his name is. And that's great, because I don't know about you guys, but stuff like that happens to me every week. They had a 'challenge' that involved guessing calories of fattening foods, and the punishment for failing to come the closest was having to eat the food itself. Would they do that to an alcoholic? "Oh, sorry buddy, you'll have to finish off that fifth of scotch. But it'll sure help those shakes!"

Occasionally they show them eating something, I'm assuming they're having a meal together. But I have no idea how the food got there, what it is, how often or how much they're eating. Now, maybe the general public doesn't realize this, but there's one reason why I am as big as I am. I eat too much. My problem is, has always been, and unfortunately always will be, with food. Sure, exercising isn't my favorite thing to do, but for me, my lack of movement followed my addition of weight. I would not have a weight problem if not for food. So, why don't they talk about it? Why don't they try and discuss these people's relationships with food, how to deal with them, and how to live a life of positive, healthy eating? And it's not like anything is so incredibly entertaining that they had to make room by bumping off anything related to food.

2. Another thing I find absolutely ridiculous are these workouts they go through. Where do I begin here? Really. They are taking people who haven't exercised, who don't exercise, and forcing them to do ridiculous workouts so they lose weight. They need trainers to help with FOOD. The exercise? Trainers are great. Exercise is key to weight loss. I get it. But this completely fabricated, phony atmosphere, with trainers like boot camp sergeants, and who I keep expecting to look at the camera and wink, because it's SO obvious they're performing, is just so far out of the realm of reality that I have a really hard time watching.

3. Another thing that gets me is the attitude toward the actual losing of the weight. I know it's a game show (because it really is, isn't it...just a really long game show) where they award the person who loses the most weight. But isn't the person who loses the least weight the one who needs help? And yet, that's the one (or in this case, the pair) who get sent home. Sure, they have their biggest loser program to follow and they keep losing weight and they get their 15 minutes of fame. But what exactly are we rewarding here?

A really sad thing is that some of these people feel bad, are downright crestfallen, because their weight loss didn't meet their expectations. So, someone who lost 7 pounds in a week feels bad because they lost less than their competitors. 7 pounds. Where the hell am I exactly? They're crying. They berate themselves. They get angry.

I've gotten angry over not losing what I'd hoped. But i remind myself, a loss is a loss.

4. A whole other reason I don't care for it is that it's just not very good. Goodly parts of it are downright boring. The challenges are boring. The people are, frankly, boring. On the last episode a father/daughter pair had to choose between them who would go home. The conversation between the father and daughter was endless, and I think it was supposed to be suspenseful, but I just felt like telling them to shut the hell up and decide already.

So, I don't think I'll be watching much anymore. Or at all. Maybe if it's on and I'm flipping around I'll....

Oh for crying out loud, who am I kidding. I'll never watch it again.