I am sweaty...and other similarly fascinating tales

Alright, so life gets kinda hectic for most people. Be you single or married, parents or not, working or living in your parents basement....whatever. And given your hectic schedule you have to find a way to fit in the essentials.


For me, this essential is working out. Why must I fit it in? Well, my little burgeoning baby bump that is made entirely of pita chips and cheese is the answer, my friend. If I was a celeb I can almost assure you the paps would be on high-alert. 'is she pregnant?'. Hell, I myself would wonder the same thing if there wasn't a key ingredient missing (I'll let you guess which one).


Alright, it's not THAT bad...but I've been noticing a little more 'gush' lately and with my current schedule, working out after work has become difficult. And working out before work? Well, is just impossible because I'm lazy.


So, I had a revelation! I will join the gym at work! It's cheap ($12 a month), they have showers and they have treadmills, elliptical and bikes. Everything I could ever hope for. Not to mention that this! month! they are getting new treadmills with LCD TVs ON EACH AND EVERY ONE. Well slap me silly and call me Bertha, that is excellent news.


I joined last week and finally was able to go this week. Yesterday and today. I was a bit hesitant when I got there. I mean, it's all my co-workers, a lot of whom I know. This is not like my neighborhood gym (that I still belong to...ya know, for the weekend), which albeit huge and super-nice, is filled with tons of suburbanites. Suburbanites with squishy middles and who wear Big Dog t-shirts. I'm never worried about looking cute at that gym. But this gym? Ahem, there are more then a few tall drinks of water and even though I know most of them and wouldn't go out with them (because obviously they're just clamoring to go out with me) it's still a bit intimidating working out around them.


Why, you may ask? Well, when God was handing out characteristics and traits to people I imagine he was going down the assembly line (since that's how it's done, obviously) and was picking out different things for different people. "She's going to have silky brown hair, and I think this one will have big boobs, and this one over here, great legs" Then he got down to the not so great stuff. "Hmmm, he'll have the hairy back, and she'll have the chin hair, and this one, this one right here, we'll give her an overactive sweat gland...heck, I'm tired of passing these out, let's just give them all to her." And that's how I got my propensity to sweat. Like a guy. I'm not even joking.


This is a documented fact that goes back as long as I can remember. In preschool, in high school, skinny, fat, while working out, while sitting on the patio in anything about 90 degree heat. Texas has been a cruel place to grow up in that regard. While most girls run 3 miles outside in August here in Texas and produce one, tiny dainty drop of sweat, *I* look like I could star in the latest rendition of Swampthing...AS Swampthing.


So back to my story. I have gotten past this fact for the most part and embrace it. But old habits die hard when you're hanging with your coworkers in a gym that's smaller than your house. Comments I have gotten in the TWO days I've worked out:


"Oh, did you just run outside?" "No?" "Oh." (I just ran 2 miles on the treadmill....inside)
"You must be almost done working out" (nope, just got started)
"Wow, you really sweat a lot" (yes, and thank you for noticing)
"Gosh, are you hot?" (yes, what tipped you off?)
And I got a lot of wide-eyed looks. Geez Louise, people!


The best....the absolute best is when one of the guys from my area decided to 'assist' me. Let me paint the scene. I've already finished running. I want to do 20 minutes on the elliptical. So I jump on. Hot guy from another department gets on next to me. On the other side of him? A girl from my area that is Polly Perfect. Perfect body, hair, nary a drop of sweat. So I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, but putting my all into working out. Just when I didn't think I could get any more uncomfortable, my coworker silently walks up behind my machine, sticks his arm out and hands me a huge wad of paper towels and give me a look like 'here, you may need these'. Okay okay, it was a nice gesture. But I was taken straight back to Junior High. I felt like the dorky kid who's mom came up to school and say 'Here's your constipation medicine' in the hallway in front of the cool kids. (not that that's actually happened, but you get the picture). Ug. "Thanks Marvin" I said and smiled as I proceeded to mop off three quarts of sweat off my brow.


This didn't deter me and I went back again today. Oh well, my coworkers have seen me bitchy, they've seen me funny, they've seen me serious and now they've seen me sweaty. I'll add gassy in there next month and then they'll get a true picture of who I am.


Alright, I'll now start taking applications for all of you that want to date me after hearing that story. The line forms here. ::crickets chirping::


Fine....moving on. So a post wouldn't be complete without some form of doggie malady. We had the parasite of last week (still on medication, thanks) and now we have something new. Gracie is officially the world's most unlucky dog.


So yesterday after work we went out in the backyard....the newly! mowed! backyard. (they left the sunflower trunk by the way...but edged nicely around it) Gracie went to the fence line and starting barking at my neighbor's dogs. I Cesar Millaned her ass and tried to get her to stop. She ran down the fence line the other way. And then yelped. And then ran towards me. The rest of this story took place in about 10 seconds. I look at where she had just been and see at least 20 hornets/yellow jacket/some kind of winged insect of death. I look over at Gracie who has one on her back and is rubbing her face on the ground. I look back at the swarm. Holy hell, they're headed towards us! So I grab Gracie like a small child and run towards the house (this all felt very dramatic at the time). We get inside and I look for a stinger (I forgot, only bees leave stingers). I couldn't figure out where on her face she got stung. I then proceeded to watch her of the next 45 minutes in case she had a bad reaction...because THAT would be typical. Luckily, no worries. I get home from dinner and a late night jaunt to work and notice where she was stung. Right above the eye. She now looks like a pirate with one puffy squinty eye that appear to need a patch. Poor Gracie. She said to tell you 'Arrrrgg!' Oh and her parasites said to say hello too.