8/17/09 The Lost Week

Okay, okay, you've been wondering where I've been, right? Well, last week was an eventful week, but it left very little time for just sitting down to write. To catch you up, here are the highlights:

Tuesday: I had my first official swimming lesson. Tony's sister J has some experience teaching people how to swim, so she very nicely offered to tutor me and then hoped that I'd move on to my next flight of fancy without ever actually taking her up on it. Unfortunately for her, I took her up on it. Which is how I found myself in the middle of a pool on Tuesday, proudly proclaiming my dorkiness in the form of a bright blue nose plug and matching blue bug-eyed goggles. (Does anybody look good in these goggles? I think not). Despite the questionable fashion accessories however, the lesson itself went (if you'll pardon the pun) just swimmingly. J is a super fabulous (and patient) teacher, as evidenced by the fact that she didn't run screaming from the pool when I showed her what I could do (read: flail around like I was fighting an invisible underwater attacker). We went over kicking, breathing, and arm movements individually, and then started working on putting all three together.

J: Okay, now just try adding the flutter kicks with the arm movements while you breathe.
Me: (underwater flailing, although with textbook breathing)
J: Um. Okay...that was...great! Your breathing looked good. Now...just add the arms and legs.
Me: (more flailing, only with arm movements this time)
J: Okay, I saw the arms, but...what happened to the kicking and the breathing?
Me: Kicking! Right! (flailing with forward motion since I remembered to kick)
J: (sighing inwardly and hoping that any of my future offspring will have her brother's coordination instead of mine) That was great kicking...now don't forget the breathing and the arms, you know, AT. THE. SAME. TIME.

See? She has the patience of a saint. And I have the coordination of someone being electrocuted. But by the end of our lesson, I like to think that we had a little forward progress. I can technically do the breast stroke and freestyle and the flip turn, although none of them with any kind of grace or rhythm (yet!). And while even just a few laps wears me out like nobody's business, I'm getting there. I'll probably never be an Olympic contender, but I'm really getting a kick (get it?) out of swimming now. I finally get what everybody is going on and on about. I look forward to my cardio days because I'm spending all of them in the pool now. (You're dead to me now treadmill! You hear me? Dead! I've moved on!) I love swimming!

Wednesday: Oh my goodness I can't move my shoulders! Apparently I've never really used my shoulder muscles in quite this way before. And are my joints supposed to pop like that when I move my arms? That doesn't really sound right. I thought swimming was supposed to be easy on the joints! That old guy in the lane next to me never has any problems! Taking it easy for the next few days...

Thursday: I have discovered the TV show Bones. It's awesome! How did I not know about this show before? It's all about a crime-solving forensic anthropologist and her FBI agent partner. (So, kinda CSI meets Numbers or something). The series is based on the life and novels of Kathy Reichs, which is totally funny because I'd read her books a few years ago and never made the connection to the TV show. And while some of the burned-body-rotting-flesh-exposed-skeleton shots are not for the faint of heart (although not nearly as bad as the squishy sucking sound effects that go along with them...shudder), the characters are amazingly likable. I stayed up all night Thursday night watching season one online. (If you've never watched a team of scientists boiling the remaining flesh off of bones at 3:00 in the morning before, you don't know what you're missing). As an added trivia bonus, the FBI agent, David Boreanaz, kinda slightly maybe-if-you-squint resembles a guy that I dated in high school, so I like to think that that gives me an additional connection to the show. I highly recommend. (The show, not my old boyfriend, although he was a nice enough guy too).

Friday: I can now move my arms without my joints sounding like I'm 104, so I'm back to swimming. This was a solo practice without J, but I'm still coming along. J's husband M also bought me a book on how to swim, and that's been incredibly helpful too. So far, I can beat the old guy who always swims in the lane next to me when I'm at the gym, but he can outlast me in endurance. (In his defense, I never told him that we were racing). My next goal is to be as fast as the severely pregnant lady who likes the far lane. (She's deceptively good considering that she's not exactly aerodynamic at the moment).

In other completely pointless Friday news, I stopped by the store on the way home to purchase a book of stamps. The gum popping, black lipstick wearing, Kurt Cobain sporting lifeform masquerading as a teenaged girl at the customer service counter made sure to let out a huge sigh to convey what an inconvenience it was for her to walk the 5 feet from the cash register to the mail counter to get my stamps for me. I was so busy thinking snarky remarks back at her ("What? You think you invented grunge? And what's with the Kurt Cobain shirt? He died years before you were even born. And please don't let my stamps interfere with you just standing there, picking flecks of black nail polish off of your nails...") that I didn't bother to look at what was on the stamps before I got back home. Now, far be it from me to criticize the post office, but exactly what were they thinking when they made the decision to put the Simpsons characters on official postal currency? Do I really need Bart Simpson on my electric bill? Does Homer Simpson really convey the tone I'm looking for with my business correspondence? I think not. Maybe it's because I was never really a huge follower of the show, but every time I go to mail a letter now, I cringe. What happened to dead presidents? Or famous landmarks? Or birds of North America? Those are good stamp candidates. I'm less enthused about paying 44 cents for a tiny picture of a fictional character whose most redeeming epitaph was "Eat my shorts". I'm also wondering if the delightful Ms. Cobain picked them on purpose just to annoy me.

Saturday: All that probably wouldn't had been enough to keep me from posting had it not been for the computer virus that we picked up on Saturday. (Lesson learned: When watching TV online, stick to the major known websites like hulu. Otherwise you end up with a virus that keeps sending you to porn and Viagra sites without your permission). We ended up doing a system reset to get rid of it (not to mention buying new virus protection since ours was obviously out of date), but the sound driver was corrupted, so I spent most of Sunday working on that. BTW, shout out to my IS-savvy buddy D who saved me from eternal computer silence by finding the correct driver and telling me how to reinstall it. I throw myself at her feet and kiss her shoes as she walks by. ("Blessed are the IS people, for they shall save me from myself"). Anyway, driver reinstalled, and I am back to being loud and proud, computer-wise.

So in short, swimming, sore, swimming, stamps, virus, sound drivers. Now you're all caught up and we're ready to start this week.

Well, right after I finish this episode of Bones anyway.