One free hotdog!

September 10th was a home game between the San Francisco 49ers and Chris's favorite team, the Cardinals. Monday night football gets him starry-eyed and we bought tickets from a mild-mannered season ticket holder through the wonders of Craigslist. On Mondays I have graduate classes all day from nine in the morning to seven at night and one thought that kept me going was getting a hotdog at the football game. Chris picked me up after classes and we worked our way through San Francisco's messed-up highway system to get to the high-class Bayshore area where Monster Park has landed. He missed the first quarter and parked about a half mile out in a dusty field they try to call a parking lot.
At the game we had pretty close seats and I pulled out The Second Shift (Hochschild, 2003). Watching the game in our section was like being at Catholic Mass; up and down, up and down. I find this team spirit activity futile because when I stand I'm still too short to see. So I volunteer to buy our dinner and let Chris enjoy the game.
A lot of people had the same idea and I stood behind a line with about ten people in it already. I talked to some Arizona natives and ended up waiting about 20 minutes just to order. I recieved the garlic fries awfully fast, but was told the dogs were coming in ten to fifteen. Minutes?
I stood there with a large, grey van-dick wearing father with his twelve-year-old son while we heard the half-time fireworks go off. They were dedicating the field to Bill Walsh that night. Of course, I started joking with the father about the wait and then he said he didn't want a hotdog anymore. So, being the diplomate I try to be sometimes, I said, "Well, I'm sure if you ask for your money back, they will understand. You have been waiting a while."
He took my advice and asked the young hotdog stand lady for his money back. That young lady went in the back, probably to see if there were any hotdogs; one last-ditch effort to please the customer. While she was in the back her 50-something woman supervisor stepped up to the window and said to the father, "Don't you ever talk to my girls like that!" And as I stood there I felt I had sort of caused the power-play and my beanie got itchier on my hot forehead as these two adults verbally had it out. He got his money and took his son back to the stands.
After so much tension I put a cheesy smile on my big face and said I still wanted a hotdog, please. The boss-lady with a tight smile turns to another worker carrying a box of hotdogs, grabbed two and put them in front of me. I thanked her, took the dogs and fries and quickly got back to Chris.
When I get back to Chris after what seemed to be an hour, I whispered that I got a free hotdog. It wasn't until a ride home from the gym a few days later, where he heard exactly how that "free" hotdog came to be. Maybe I felt a little guity about the hotdog or the sad display of disrespect at the hotdog stand.
The Cardinals lost and it was an great last quarter because the Niners came back with five minutes on the clock. I just love the sportsmanship at these sporting events. Go humanity!

Working It Out

So, I have been on a mission, Nano in hand or in the waist of my tight pants, to try to make exercise a more regular part of my life. Obviously, my diet needed to change a little bit which in a nutshell, I needed to be physically, tummy-rumbling hungry, before consuming each meal. Also, since I was not working or attending school this summer I made sure we cooked for ourselves most evenings. That helped with our portion control and with what exactly was going into our bodies.
This summer I found a great class Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays that suited my style perfectly. Eric was the instructor and had a fun, flamboyant personality. Even after showing us the basic move he would do, what I would called a “Stewart” moment, and spasm into a crazy bit of personal choreography. Having a background as a drill sergeant or exercise leader in the Marines, but also working for a ballet company really influenced his teaching methods. Mondays and Fridays was a modern dance, tai chi, free-style, free-spirit class that I loved. Tuesdays and Thursdays was a functional weightlifting class; instead of your regular bicep curls and lunges, we would use weighted bars to “row a boat” or “chop wood.” Getting fit for those house chores!
But now I have other priorities and I go to the gym when I can, having to be more self-motivatedeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww (sorry, that was Smally stepping on the keyboard). A true Gym Rat trying to ignore all the other gym-members with my ear-buds in my ears. Supposedly, there is construction happening to the Gold’s Gym a few towns over and that is why our gym is so crowded. I do know that it drives Chris craaaaazzzzzy. As long as I can get on my favorite cardio machines, I’m cool, but if I have my personal space invaded by another person, besides my husband, Chris, that drive me craaaaaazzzy. "What?!? I'm working out here!"
Case in point, in Eric’s aerobics classes tightly-dressed Baby Boomers get in my way regularly. I think to myself, “Don’t they know, when I do a turn in the air, they might be back-handed?”
There is another issue I have has to do with my beloved Nano: I will be just beginning to run and both ear-buds will do a suicide leap from my ears. No amount of extra padding or pleading keeps them in. I don't think it is proper form to run with my fingers in my ears, so I have given up the fight. My “Running Mix” playlist is wasted on my speed walking and other cardio activities. Anyone else have that problem with their ear-buds? Ear-duds more like it!
Today I was going around and working my lower body (that’s the polite way of saying, my ghetto bootie and thunder thighs). I was on what I call the Lower Back Apparatus, which I use to continually squeeze my butt-cheeks together, and noticed my keys were elsewhere. As I apologetically moved them away from the exercise area of another member, she chose to be friendly and said something to me.
First of all, I had my music on and at a level where I do not want to hear anything else but that music. Second, I had been working out for a while and was enjoying being "in the zone" or a Spacecase. So I removed a sweaty ear-bud and politely said, “Excuse me?” But even when she repeated herself, her words, “Those keys look like you have a nice car,” were not comprehended in my brain-fog. So I just smiled and nodded. Since I’m a manners-freak, I should have said, “Thank you.” I’m officially a rude worker-outer!  But, I believe the hard work is paying off as I have lost a third of the weight I want to lose.
The next class I want to try is their Belly Dancing one. I have got enough hips for it and enough belly! Cannot wait to strap some of those bells on.