thoughts on a monday morning at the gym...

My day today started out as it usually does on a Monday morning. As if to mock the early hour, I was awakened by the absurd radio station Dave has set the alarm to. In protest of the talk-radio station I had set it to a few days ago, he found some dumb station that plays not "the best hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s," but "the lamest songs no one listened to during the 60s and 70s, and now you know why." Dave's not bothered by stupid music in the morning. He's just out of it enough that he's kept in a sort of stupor until he stumbles into the light of the bathroom. I told him he had to change the station because I cannot bear another second of whatever that music is supposed to be and he goes, "That wasn't NPR?" So like it or not, my day starts all too early to the tune of stupidness. I don't care who you are, that's a great start to any day.

We wake up at 4:30. It's an obscenely early hour to be doing anything besides sleeping, but in order to be one of the lucky winners of a treadmill at the gym (I use that term loosely -- It's actually the community rec center, and I think there are about 9 treadmills there), and to be done using it in time to get home and get the kids up for school, we have to arrive at the gym no later than 5:02. I discovered this last year, when I first started coming. After about a week of trying to get a treadmill before 6 and ending up on an elliptical instead, I showed up at the crack of 5 and secured one.

Already you have a good indication of my stupid level. I wake up every weekday morning at 4:30 to 70s guitar rock (I guess) in order to fight 15 other people for one of the 9 treadmills. That's pretty high on the stupid list, isn't it?

Even stupider is the insane need to comply with posted signs that keeps me and Dave from doing what every other rec center member does with no conscience: They all enter through the "exit only" door to get to the treadmills more quickly. But not me and Dave. No, some stubborn streak in us makes us walk all the way around the entrance area, because we will certainly not stoop to the level of going "in" the "out!" I'm sorry to say, we have lost the last treadmills for this hardheaded display of pride.

I used to go to a gym; you know, the real gym, with like 150 treadmills and 70 tvs, a weight room the size of wal-mart, and a women's weight room on top of that. The gym commands a different slice of humanity than the rec center. At 5:00 in the morning, at least half of the people showing up at the rec center are over the age of 65. This is good for me, because that means I'm still nimble enough to beat them to the treadmills -- or I would be if I didn't have to keep the rules. The gym, on the other hand, seemed always to be filled with far too beautiful people, looking far too beautiful to be working out, with far too coordinated outfits (think fantastic fitting yoga pants with some cute halter thinger and a great headband thing wrapped around amazing hair that looks like the wearer truly doesn't care how she looks, even though she looks completely fantastic, and I couldn't hope to look that good if I spent hours getting ready to go to the gym).

I fit better at the rec center than the gym. And I've become rather oddly attached to so many of the people there. After a year, I know two of them by their given names. The others, who we always smile and say hello to, have all been affectionately named by Dave and myself. There's Sweaty-John-Jones, who runs like crazy on the elliptical and sweats all over the place; there's The Man with One Red Arm, who actually has two arms, but who is always wearing a red, noisy warm-up suit and does all the "both-arms-at-a-time" exercises with just one of his arms. There's Margaret, who, though I'm fairly certain is not really named Margaret, reminds us of Margaret Houlihan from M*A*S*H; I wonder why we don't call her Hot Lips. There's Evan, who runs on the elliptical in his swim trunks and has an uncanny resemblance to Dave's 3-year-old nephew, Evan. There's the PPSSHH Guy, who grabs really heavy weights and curls them about 2 inches, exhaling with a PPSSHH sound on every rep. There are the Raucous Laughter Duo, the two big guys who often show up in camos and beanies and spend a lot of time sitting at the curl machine... well, laughing raucously. Then there's the new guy I call the Jazz Man. He wears shiny purple shorts to work out in every day. He only started coming at the first of the year, but the first time I saw him, I thought, Wow, someone actually picked out shiny purple shorts for himself. On purpose. Purple. Must like the Jazz. Go figure. I worry about him because the man puts his whole body into everything. When he walks in, he takes up a lot of space, despite his somewhat lanky appearance, because he swings his arms wide, and takes a wide stance as he walks. But most striking about this man is his active use of his head while exercising. He swings his head backward and forward with every repetition. Not just a little, but enough that I can't help wondering if he's gonna hit his head on the butterfly machine someday soon.

I wonder what someone would affectionately name me and Dave... Red-faced Girl and Baldy? Wimpy-Thing and Strong-Man-Muscle-Shirt-Guy? I'm good with that. I mean, at least I'm there, having braved the stupid music on the radio, the terrible hour of the morning, and Sweaty-John-Jones'...well, sweat. It's a brave thing I do every morning. Can't wait til tomorrow.

Course, I can't wait til Saturday even more. Saturdays know no 4:30 am.

ushering out the holidays

Well the Thanksgiving turkey was fantastic (but the stuffing was king), the fall colors - gorgeous, the first snowstorm - delicious, the tree - so cute, the decorations in general - brilliant, the Christmas trip to Island Park - hilarious, the New Year - new. And there you have the last month or two in a nut shell.

Life moves so fast. Too fast recently. I had to take a break from my blog in November so I could help design a brochure for the business that really ended up being re-designed in full by a far more talented person than I. But once the design had shifted to someone else, I was in the midst of all the yummy things I love about the holidays, so there was just no time for mindless flapdoodle and bosh and suddenly it's two months later and I can finally take an hour or so to sit and write long run-on sentences and use too many commas. Oh, but, they're, lovely, aren't, they?

I thought I'd just tell you about one of my favorite things that happened all season, and it's up there not because it's centered around my kids or family or any of the other things I love so much about Christmas. It's more because it was a night just jam-packed with people's delightful absurdities. In fact, as far as holiday absurdities go, it's second only to the Ruin of the Spectacular Shoes of 2007's holiday. But that's likely another post. And it'll be a good one.

So this year, I ended up "volunteering" as an usher at my 7th-grader's Christmas chorus concert. I use the quotation marks because I really kind of had to volunteer -- her chorus teacher required parental involvement in order for the student to be eligible for an A, as I remember it. I can't possibly be the reason for a B, for heaven's sake, so I signed up to usher at one of the two performances. No big deal, right? How hard could it be, after all, since I'll be there to hear her sing anyway; I can certainly stand at the door and tell people where to go. Ha ha.

I was contacted by a cheery-sounding woman a day or two before the performance. She assigned me my door, and told me my only job really, was to keep the door closed if the hallways became a little too noisy, and to not allow people in and out during the songs. Easy.

Little did I know that the chorus teacher had each one of his music ensembles performing that evening. That included the beginning chorus, his advanced chorus, some other chorus (maybe they're the in-between-chorus), his guitar ensemble, some mixed chorus, and it seems like a violin group or something. Really I can't remember, the night was a blur of hot, angry, over-crowded people.

So that each class can appreciate the talents of the others, the teacher requires all of the performers to sit in their ensembles with the audience. That takes up a good 1/4 to 1/3 of the seats. Then he asks the students (with the threat of lower grades, I think) to make sure they bring 5 people to the concert. Five people for every kid in the ensembles! You've got to be kidding me, even if there are two shows, there's not a chance we can all fit in that auditorium with a bunch of the seats already taken by his choirs. Of course, I didn't truly know this until after the concert began.

I arrived a little before call time, you know, so I could make sure my "Usher" badge was straight and in full view (it was actually a sticky label with a hastily-scratched "usher" in Sharpie black), and find my "specially marked" seat by my assigned door. Well imagine my surprise when I walked in to find a full-house already, with 5 minutes until show time, and someone sitting in my usher seat! Well I'll tell you what, I'm not going to stand for 2 hours while I have this sticky label on my chest guaranteeing me a seat. My first order of business was to remove the seat-stealer from my chair.

"Excuse me," I said -- politely, I might add. "Are you an usher?"

He looked at me blankly.

I pointed at my tag. "I believe you're in my seat. They reserved this seat for the usher."

Nothing.

"I'm sorry," I tried again. "I think you'll need to find a seat somewhere else, this seat is reserved for the usher." Now I pointed pointedly (which is really the best way to point, isn't it?) at the sticker on my chest.

He looked at me for another second and said, "Oh. Do you need a seat?"

Well yes, but it's not like I'd ask you to move if I just needed a seat. You're in MY seat, man. I'M the usher! I get the seat by the door! I've got the sticky label, I've got dibs. "I'm the usher," I said, hoping he might somehow make the connection between me and the seat he was in.

He stood up a little confusedly, and looked at the chair. Sure enough, on the back of the chair was a sticky label almost identical to the one I was brandishing on my chest.

Understanding washed over his face. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in your seat." Oh really?

By now, some representative of the school had begun to welcome everyone, etc and blah blah, and now let's begin. Well unfortunately, only the really smart parents who have had other children come through the ranks of the chorus ensembles knew to show up an hour early to secure an actual seat. The other half of the parents were still streaming in. And I mean streaming, none of this one-or-two people here and there. They were lined up outside my door, and waiting for their moment of horrible realization that there is no where left to sit in this auditorium, and at some point, we're going to have to stop walking in and try to start walking out. Couldn't that vice principal take a little longer in his intro? Now here goes the piano intro on the first song, and oh dear, it's not a little noisy out in the hall it's full of giddy teenagers yelling and shouting and laughing and meeting up at the big Christmas chorus concert, and my door's still open. But there's like 50 people standing in it and there's no way in a million years I can close the dang thing, and there's also no way in a million years that anyone in the back of the auditorium could hear that song. 8th graders.

By the end of the song, people had started back out the door and I managed to get it closed as the 2nd song began. It locks on the outside when closed, of course, so that's when the brilliant people who hadn't yet made it inside to witness for themselves that there's fire-code-violating standing room only began to knock on the door. Knocking. On a door. During a concert. ...Who raised these people?

I opened the door after the 2nd song to let in another flood of people who stopped short upon their first view of the place -- every seat and most of the isles, filled. But of course, the people at the back of the flood can't figure out what in the world could possibly be stopping the idiots at the front of this mass. So they're grumbling, and I'm smiling and apologizing (I'm not sure why, I'm just the dummy with a sticker on my chest. I have no real authority.), and mumbling non-sentences like, "No where to sit," or "so many people," and "no where to go." One particularly grumbly woman with a pierced tongue glared at me as she said, "Well if they'd just move up, I could at least hear my kid sing!" I nodded with a frozen smile and just barely squeezed the door shut as the next song began.

And here's where it started getting ugly. I've just squashed about 20 more people into a space that comfortably holds 3-and-a-half. There is no where to move forward, and a closed door is behind us. I am the only thing standing between them and freedom, yet I am forbidden to open the doors during a song. I now have 20 people with no where to go. A few move to leave and I stand with my arms protecting the door and whisper as quickly as possible, "I'm sorry, you'll have to wait til the end of the song to leave!"

Miraculously that sticky label carried more authority than I thought. They all nodded at me, like they were accepting their death sentence, and waited for the song to end.

It went on like this for a song or two, with people knocking on the door, and others trying to leave during the middle of the songs (and most of these are adults, mind you, not irresponsible teenagers who don't know better), and almost everyone getting grouchier the more crowded and hot it became.

Part way through the second or third group, the woman with the pierced tongue returned. Apparently she had heard her "kid" sing, and was ready to go. She was followed by a scraggly-looking young man, and a taller, back-woodsy-looking man, who I assume, was her husband. Up they come, squishing through people in quite a rush, until they get to me, The Keeper of the Door.

I guarded the door again, amid knocks from the outside and whispered (probably too loudly) "I'm sorry, I can't open the door until the end of this song."

She was mad.

And bigger than me.

"We were supposed to be on the road two hours ago!" she said.

Well what difference will another 3 minutes make?!

I didn't say that. I only thought of it later. ...Probably better that way.

"I'm sorry, I can't open the door until the song is over," I repeated with that obnoxious frozen smile of mine. No, I'm not nervous. Not at all. I mean, sure, she could take me in a bar-room brawl in a second. And then take me and squash me again if she wanted. But no, no, I'm not nervous.

Did I mention she was mad?

Then her husband says something to her that I thankfully, couldn't hear, to which she responded (unfortunately I could hear this one), "What do you want me to do -- knock her out of the way?"

Um. Does anyone else want to wear my sticker? I'm done now.

Thankfully I was spared (chalk that one up to a Christmas Miracle) as they waited impatiently for the song to end (and by the way, I do believe it was the longest song on the program), and the rest of the night went on much like the excruciating first 25 minutes.

About 3/4 of the way through, the lights quit working. That was a highlight. But the show must go on, and on, and on, and so it did. With flashlights. But by then I was giddy with the lovely absurdities presented to me, one right after another. It was delightful. Having escaped certain death (or at least certain pain) from the tongue-pierced woman, I became suddenly very appreciative of all the funny quirks that come out in people when they're shoved into a hot, over-filled auditorium with other hot, over-crowded people, a faulty lighting system and an absurdly determined usher at the main door. Each new grumpy face delighted me. Every bang on the door became funnier and funnier.

I vowed, of course, that I would never, ever, in a bazillion years, volunteer to do this again. But it's been a month since the concert and now I almost might do it again. But only if the lights go out again. And the lady with the pierced tongue comes back.

I've been working out. I think I could take her.

Merry Christmas. Late or not.