Mr. Incredible

I think I'll write about my sister today. I absolutely love her.

A couple of days ago, we were running in the park. It was on Monday, actually, and we had to run six miles that day. It had only been the previous day that we had run 16 miles, so we were pretty beat. Neither one of us was in much of a mood to put in any more miles.

So, we were running along and grumbling, and this guy rides by on his bike. Very nonchalantly, my sister utters "Look, it's Mr. Incredible." (I'm laughing right now just thinking about it). He was dressed in a tight-fitting red t-shirt and black shorts. He was a rather large fellow, and he narrowed down to very small feet. He looked disproportionally large on that bike of his. In short, he looked like Mr. Incredible.

Needless to say, we had a good laugh, then continued on in grumpy silence.

That first sip…Ahhhhhhhhhhh

I heard a news report yesterday that it has been discovered that coffee is GOOD FOR YOU! How about that. More antioxidants in it than any other food or beverage in the American diet. I for one am glad to hear that.

When I started training for this marathon, I decided that I was going to get healthy and cut some things out of my diet – namely sugar, and coffee.

I replaced my coffee with Green Tea. It lasted about a week. I had such a headache that I could barely function, and the green tea was severly lacking when it came to that first-sip euphoria. Actually, "lacking" is the wrong word. It was non-existant. Kimmy and I have discussed the feeling you get when you take that first sip of coffee in the morning – it's about as close to heaven on earth you can get after being rudely awakened by the insistent buzzing of the alarm clock. Sometimes, we both have found, we actually wake up (before the alarm, even) in anticipation of that first sip. Kimmy knows. That's what happens when you share a brain with someone.

As far as the sugar goes, well…

Like I said, I had a large piece of cake yesterday, worthy or not.

Here are some excerpts from the article. This one is from the Dallas Morning News.

"Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released Sunday."

"Antioxidants, which are thought to help battle cancer and provide other health benefits, are abundant in grains, tomatoes, and many other fruits and vegetables."

"Mr. Vinson said he was researching tea and cocoa and other foods and added coffee."

"His team analyzed the antioxidant content of more than 100 food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages. The researchers then used Agriculture Department data on typical food consumption patterns to calculate the amount of antioxidants each food contributes to a person's diet."

"They concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily."

Does anyone really know what time it is?

I realize that when I post my entries for the day, I often forget to put the correct time on it. I don't know why, it's just not something I think about until I view my new post and realize the time is off. I'll try to do better, but don't count on it. I'll put the correct time on this one now since I'm thinking about it.

Look at that! Only 9 minutes left until I get to leave this cake-eating hell hole behind for the night!

Is "hell" a swear word?

Definitely NOT cake-worthy.

Well, it is as I feared – I am not cake-worthy.

A guy came into the art room with a piece of cake (it looked good, too – white cake with strawberry filling. White cake is my favorite) to inform us that he had been summoned for the big party.

So, he's eating this cake and kind of rubbing it in that he was "summoned" for cake and we weren't. I said in my sternest voice possible "Get out of this art room with that cake." He thought I was joking. He started to laugh in a nervous way, and I said it again, "I said, get out of this art room with that cake." He left. I wasn't really joking.

Here's the thing about the cake. Sure, if you know me at all, you know that I LOVE cake. I mean, LOVE IT. It's not about the cake, it's about his bozo deciding that I am not good enough for cake – it's flour, water and sugar! What an imbecile. Who does he think he is that he can calculate someone's worth based on his flawed perception of the job they do, or whether or not he likes the shirt they're wearing that day. What a joke! It's not about the cake, it's the pettiness of it all and the fact that NO ONE seems to get it! Imbeciles.

Needless to say, I helped myself to a rather large piece and boy was it good!

Am I Cake-worthy?

Here at work today, we are celebrating another momentous occasion – the boss's birthday. (I have worked here for four weeks and have never met him.)

Here's the way parties with cake work around here:
1. A very large cake is bought
2. An email is sent to only those people who are deemed cake-worthy.
3. They partake in the cake, while the rest of us look on.
4. The rest is thrown away. (okay, I just made this part up, but I think it adds a bit of authenticity to an already incredulous story, plus, it could and probably does happen. I'll confirm this at a later date.)

The card just came around a couple of minutes ago, and I added my signature to it – he will have no idea who I am, but that's kind of the fun part of this whole scenario :) So, I guess I'm good enough to sign the card. That's a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. It remains to be seen whether or not I'm cake-worthy. My, I hope so. I do so love cake.

I'll keep you posted.

What is it about the word "Black?"

A funny thing happened to me in the lunch room here at work today…

I was sitting at one of the tables in the lunch room with a couple of co-workers from the art department, and we were having a conversation with this other group of people about the guys who man the security booth at the front gate. They were talking about a guy named Jimmy, and I asked, which one is Jimmy? There seems to be a bunch of different guys out there in the booth and while I recognize some of them, a lot of times there are people I've never seen before.

So, four people proceed to try to describe to me who Jimmy is:

"He's the guy with the sunglasses."
"He's the guy who drives the truck."
"You know, he's got the long fingernails like a woman's?"
"The one who always has a real (as opposed to a toy?) gun strapped to his belt."

Anyway, these people kept throwing out all the characteristics that still didn't really narrow it down for me. Finally, I asked,
"Are you talking about the black guy?" (There is only one African American security guard)

All of them answered "Yes, that's the one!", with such relief – like they were tired of trying to dance around the obvious and who is this girl who's so thick that she can't get what we're saying?

Needless to say, all of us from the art room busted out laughing – tears were running down my face – I was laughing so hard. The four imbeciles (I love that word) who were trying to describe this man to us had this puzzled look on their faces like they couldn't understand what was so funny.

Is it just me, or do people sometimes get so caught up in being "politically correct" that they actually become more offensive?

More Imbeciles

I encountered two imbeciles yesterday – one on my drive to work in the morning, the other on my drive home from work in the evening. Let's start with the first…

As I was driving down Market Street to my job downtown, the traffice slowed quite a bit because drivers in the right lane were trying to merge into the left lane to go around an accident. A guy driving a small pickup truck had slammed into a BUS that had stopped to pick up passengers. How do you run into the back of a BUS? We're talking a huge vehicle here. There's only one word to describe someone who runs into a parked BUS. That's right – imbecile.

After a long day at work, I go out to my car parked in my gravel patch and lo and behold, there's someone else parked in the gravel next to me! An old junky Camaro, and it's punk owner gets in his car right after I start to pull out. Well, since I'm driving on gravel, I drive slowly so as not to kick up a bunch of rocks. I guess I was cramping his Indy style – he was right on my bumper all the way through the gravel and through the guard booth and out onto the street where he promptly guns the engine on his half matte-black body shop special and goes into the oncoming lane of traffice to get around slow-poke me and cuts me off to get in front of me (and still behind someone else) at the red light. Nice. Good thing he did that. He got so much further ahead. Of course, he's going my way, so of course, I must pull up next to him and roll my window down to give him the thumbs up (yes, it was a thumb) and yell at him "Nice piece of driving, imbecile!". I know, I know, not a very Christian thing to do, but it sure felt good. I can't wait to see him at work today. His car is once again parked in the gravel patch next to mine. There's only one word to describe the kind of person who acts like an ass to a co-worker. That's right – imbecile.

Is that a rash or are you just happy to see me?

My sister called me today to tell me about this strange rash that is slowly starting to cover her entire body. Weird. She noticed it last night on her ankles when her uniform pants came up a little as we were stretching before our martial arts class. She thought it was just the lighting in the studio playing tricks on her. But later, she noticed that it had crept up her legs. Come morning, it had spread up to her arms.

We're twins, and as such, the same things happen to us a lot. They could be simultaneous happenings, or they could be months apart. Her rash sounds like the same rash I had about a year and a half ago. Mine started on my legs, then quickly spread until it covered my entire body, including my face. Freaky. I remember I had a martial arts tournament that weekend, so I performed rash and all. I must have been quite a site. It was extremely itchy and blistering hot to the touch. I hate being hot. Needless to say, I didn't perform well that day – I stumbled on a side kick and lost my forms competition – but, I digress. Back to the rash…

Hers differs in a couple of ways from mine:
1. Hers doesn't itch.
2. Hers isn't covering her entire body. (Thankfully, she will be spared the looks of pity I got when people got a load of my hideous red bumpy face).

At the time, I was on antibiotics for a sinus infection, and when this rash came on like gangbusters, I immediately took myself to the ER convinced I was having a life-threatening allergic reaction to the antibiotics (it was 2:00 a.m.). I baffled the hell out of the staff there. They put me on an IV of Cortizone for two hours and sent me home.

Turns out, it's a rare viral infection. At least, that's what Stephie's is. She explained to her doctor that I had the same rash last year, only mine was itchy and it spread to my face. He told her mine was an allergic reaction to antibiotics. How about that? I diagnosed myself. Those imbeciles at Beeghly had no idea. I should have been a doctor. Screw art.

I love the word "imbecile". It makes me laugh.

Somebody Stop Her!

I have a lot to catch up on, so bear with me.

I've been training for a marthon for the past 15 weeks. Before I started this training, I always considered myself to be in good shape – boy was I wrong. Running has a way of humbling even the toughest of competitors. After my first "long" run, I was limping back to my car complaining about everything – my shoes, my shorts, the weather, the strange man who looked at me funny, the dog on the long leash, the little kid who cut me off on his trike, the bowlegged man who ran past me like I was standing still – well, you get the idea. This was a run of four miles. HA! HA!

Now, I'm grateful for a four mile run and can whip it out like the fiercest of runners. Funny how our perspectives change after we've been through the hard stuff. What seemed like an insurmountable obstacle is now a welcome relief. Running has now become a glimpse into my Christian life. While I'm going through the fire, I'm struggling with every step and just waiting for the finish line. When it's over, I feel tired, sure, but more than that, I feel at peace and strong and am so grateful for the blessings I'm given that allow me to survive it. For running, it's strength, endurance, determination, focus and mental clarity. For life, it's all those same things.

I've been through some "marathons" in my life, and now I'm much better off for them. I didn't realize it at the time.

I'm up to sixteen miles, now.

Welcome to my blog

Kimmy, this is all your fault. Now I'm going to be held responsible for speaking my mind in a relatively civilized, articulate manner on a daily basis. AAAAHHHHHH!

The thing about blogs is this…
I LOVE THEM. A lot of my friends have them, and I go to each one daily to check them out. I have my artsist friend who adds some really insane and off-the-wall stuff to hers, and she's got some long-running "series" that I look forward to. I have my musician friend (he's slacking lately, by the way) who keeps the world up to date on recording projects, various instruments and the like while at the same time having some pretty interesting commentary on faith (that would be Faith, capital "F") and what it means to him to be a Christian. Then I have my pregnant friend (wife of the musician friend) who is a writer (she's writing the "Novel of Doom") who always has something witty to say that frequently makes me laugh or stop and think. Then there is my Star Wars friend. He always ends his posts with a quote from one of the Star Wars movies. I'm amazed at the quotes he comes up with and can't wait to see how he'll end his next post. Then there's Kimmy. Kimmy is the wife of Star Wars blogger. It's her fault that I'm taking time out of my game to make this post. Thanks, Kimmy. I feel like a real part of the family now.

Welcome to my blog.