Bringing up the rear

I started my first day of fitness boot camp and I have to say I hate the person who invented this shit. My worst fears were realized when I was, in fact, the fat lady who was the last one to cross the finish line. We ran 1/2 a mile, had our introduction to boot camp, ran another 1/2 mile, did 40 deep knee bends, 30 sit ups, 20 push-ups, and 10 of those frog things where you drop down, kick your legs up and hop back up. After that, we ran yet another 1/2 mile. I will neither admit nor deny that I kept an accurate count of my calisthenics, but I did as best I could. I was the last person to cross the finish line by a good 3 minutes and I am happy to report that they cheered me on. I explained the whole cancer/chemo (gravy train ride) thing, and I further explained that I would not quit but I would do the best I was able to do and that was not going to make me first across the finish line. I found the running hurt the lungs more then it tired out my legs and the push-ups were hard on the upper body after barely lifting things for a very long time.

That which does not kill us will just hurt like hell for a very long time. I will go back for more punishment on Wednesday and Thursday this week. I have 3 classes a day for the next 4 weeks.......really??

More stuff I did not know

I have known for a while that you should drink water at room temperature in order to hydrate more quickly. When you drink really cold water your body has to warm it up before it can be used. What I did not know is that the act of drinking ice water will aggravate the hot flashes by upsetting the body's normal temp. I knew that air conditioning was not the best alternative, but I did not know that having a fan blow on you directly will dry you off while helping close the body's pores. By closing pores, you are again upsetting the body's natural cooling systems. Of course, the Chinese herbalist/acupuncturist telling me this was a man who has never experienced a hot flash. All good in theory I guess.

The summer heat and working dogs

I know you are NOT supposed to touch, pet or otherwise interfere with a seeing eye dog while his/her harness is attached. What about offering the owner water for the dog? I was on the train the other day and a woman entered with her dog. The dog did not seem to want to sit/lay down (actually, I wouldn't want to touch the floor of an L train either) but when it finally lay down, it was obvious the dog was hot. It was panting frantically. I had an empty container after bringing a salad to work and a bottle of water in my bag. I was across the aisle so I could not lean in and ask. Was I wrong to not ask her if she would have liked a bowl of water for her dog? When I exited the train, I encountered a man waiting at the bus stop with his dog. Should I have stopped and offered his dog a drink? I don't know what the protocol is and I did not want to offend anyone, but it was hotter the hell outside and the dogs just seemed to want or need a drink.

Oh no, not again

I came home last night, after a long stressful week, and after I finished vacuuming cat litter from the sun porch I hopped into the shower. What I saw in the mirror almost brought me to tears. After years of fighting them I really thought I had put them behind me. I am talking about the rashes I used to get under and between my boobs. They are heat rashes. Imagine my surprise to find one. I realize it may be aggrevated by both the extreme heat outside and my poor posture inside, but really?

The Catholic church OFFICIALLY hates women

I have known this for years, but their last official policy statement should confirm this for the entire world.

I shall start at the beginning. Back in 1995, during the United Nations' International Conference on Women and Children in Beijing, China, the Vatican exerted a great deal of time and effort bringing the entire conference to a screeching halt as it argued over one paragraph in the report that they were preparing. The entire report was thousands of pages and the Vatican would not let anyone do anything because they objected to that one single paragraph. The paragraph simply said that as to the issue of abortion, each country had to decide for themselves and deal with the issue as they saw fit for their own country.

The Vatican also said that women had no right to say no to their husbands when they wanted sex. It was part of the wife's duties to sexually gratify her husband. The man does not have to gratify his wife's requests for sex because that is not part of his duties to provide for his family. Don't forget the couple cannot use birth control...EVER!

It was at that point I was able to simply wash my hands of the church, run by men, and walk away. The fact that they had been engaging in an ongoing conspiracy to obstruct justice by hiding pedophiles was more then mere icing on the cake, it was res ipsa loquitor.

Now, the church, run by men, has officially declared that to ordain women as priests is to commit as great a sin as sexually molesting children. REALLLLLLLY??????

Sometimes, the world conspires

On Thursday I went for acupuncture fully prepared to sit and wait for hours in the crowded waiting room. Imagine my pleasure in finding the waiting room almost empty at 6:30. I thought I might not have enough time to eat the salad I brought for supper. Of course I was there until after 9:30 and being cash poor (the night before payday) I had to take the redline home.

The one up side to my 4 week nightmare cold from hell was that my body was too busy fighting the cold to engage in much hot flash activity. My hot flashes are back with a vengeance and seem to be trying to make up for lost time. Oh well, with the weather being what it is I no longer stand out when I whip out my fan. Gravy train!

Potential Clients

First of all, I have to say I was thrilled to death to have an old friend come to time and spend time catching up. I miss my NM friends and can't wait to see all of them. Apparently the Catie Blythe memorial guest room may be occupied so I will call ahead and see what is up when I am free to roam about the country. My passport is still being held hostage by the state of Hell.

Last night I attended my first fireworks off the pier by my house. It was wonderful being able to walk there and back and not deal with huge crowds or public transportation. Now to the potential clients part. When I was doing criminal defense work, I found myself muttering, like a mantra, "Stupid people pay my rent. Stupid people pay my rent." It was my experience that criminal clients were not evil, awful, sociopaths, but they were just average people who tended to be really stupid or who did reallllllly stupid things. One of the first things that comes to mind is driving on a suspended license. Unless you are really living in a bubble and it was suspended for something like failing to get your emissions done (this happens all the time and most people honestly did not realize it would happen), when you KNOW you have 25 unpaid tickets or you KNOW you were arrested for DUI, you KNOW your license is suspended and you have no excuses for being caught driving. My favorite "excuse" is that they didn't know that being suspended meant they could not drive at all. Really?

So, stupid people. Last night at the beach there were at least two groups of folks shooting off what appeared to be professional grade fireworks. We were actually quite impressed and it even appeared that one group knew what it was doing and was doing it behind a fenced in area. The rest were questionable at best. One group seemed to manage to launch all their fireworks on a horizontal plane over the lake. Not a problem if there had not been quite a few people in the water swimming at the time. Then there were the idiots who held on to sparking tubes that apparently were supposed to launch missile like projectiles. More then one of them almost got burned when the flame started to travel down the tube they were holding towards their hand. Parents will all tell you not to play with fireworks because you will blow off your hand or shoot your eye out. So, even though there were still some pretty impressive amateur fireworks going off, we chose to leave so that someone else would not shoot our eyes out.

A number of the other attorneys at work got offended when I referred to my criminal clients as "stupid people." However, the one guy who had previously worked as a public defender had to agree that for the most part, the clients were stupid.