Monday, September 5, 2011

In Which I Cook Things And Almost Show Off My Underwear

Today was a Cooking Day, also known as a Holy-Crap-I've-Got-Way-Too-Much-Stuff-From-The-Farm-Share-In-Our-Fridge-And-I-Must-Do-Something-With-It-Before-It-Goes Bad Day.  So I cooked a whole lot of things.  I made cornbread, which, okay, didn't use up anything in the fridge but dang it, it's cornbread, and I made tomato mozzarella basil salad and steamed green beans (though they started out purple, they steam up green and taste just like the regular kind) and spiced rum blackberry cobbler, which is basically regular cobbler with a fourth of a cup of Kraken Spiced Rum in it for extra awesomeness.  And then I retreated from my steamy kitchen and collapsed in a little heap on my couch. 

A giant bowl of blackberry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream went a long way towards restoring my energy levels.  Also it was delicious.

Connor spent his Labor Day (of course) having seizures.  He had three today despite a morning dose of Lorazepam, thereby confirming our he's-going-into-another-seizure-cycle theory.  Thankfully they were all relatively short, but he didn't really want to do a whole lot today and I can't say I blame him.  He played with his keyboard for a little while, we read a few books together and did some kneeling and standing work, but otherwise he mostly spent the day conked out.  I hope he musters up some energy for school tomorrow or it's going to be a long morning for him. 

So that's your usual depressing seizure report.  I swear these things are getting to be so routine that the blog is starting to sound like a broken record.  Connor needs to get back to more exciting things, like being ridiculously cute and plotting world domination.  I'm sure if he figured out how to harness his power of adorableness for evil the world's governments wouldn't stand a chance.

So anyway, I also went to the YMCA today where I did my usual weight routine.  I've been going in two or three times a week for a couple of months now, and I'm really starting to see a difference in my roller derby performance.  Derby exercises a very specific group of muscles and neglects others, which can increase the risk of knee injuries.  There's also the problem that you exercise your legs unevenly; derby involves a whole lot of "skate fast and turn left," which means that some girls who don't do any cross training actually end up with one leg much, much stronger than the other and in extreme conditions a less than flattering condition I'll refer to as UBCS-- Uneven Butt Cheek Syndrome.  I would like to avoid both injury and UBCS as long as I possibly can, so the weight room sounded like a pretty good idea.

There have been a number of embarrassing moments in the gym of course, like a couple of weeks ago when I picked up a thick barbell (the kind used for grip work) to move it out of my rack and accidentally dropped it with a tremendous clang, not only making the entire gym look in my direction but also leaving a glorious barbell end-shaped set of bruises on my inner thigh. 

Then there was the near-miss the day before yesterday when I glanced in the mirror, keys in hand, literally on my way out the door of our house to discover that the pair of white basketball shorts I'd borrowed from Jer to work out in were old enough that they'd somehow become translucent and blatantly displayed my teal undies in all their cotton, comfort-fit glory.  Whee! 

But despite a variety of near-disasters and the loss of a good portion of my personal dignity, I've continued going to the weight room, where most of the single guys of a certain variety (the ones who always do their workouts where they get the best view of the ladies in the machine room) have finally figured out that even if I'm the only chick in the free weight room (and I'm almost always the only chick in the free weight room-- at least in the squat racks) I'm there to actually lift weights and, despite their best efforts, not to make prolonged, sexy sexy eye contact in the mirror with them while they're doing their exaggerated barbell curls.  Even the persistent ones generally figure this out and drift off once I start doing squats.  Squats, when done correctly, generally make people look like they aren't getting enough fiber in their diet.  I am no exception to this rule.

I'm not sure that my cobbled-together routine hits everything I should be working out, but I just found out that the army post offers personal trainer sessions for free!  So I think I may try giving their number a call to see if I can get somebody with a little more expertise to work out a great roller derby cross training schedule just for me.  In the meantime I'll keep doing what I'm doing now in the hopes that it will make me a better player. 

And also to avoid that whole butt cheek thing.  Especially if I want to keep wearing teal undies.

~Jess

4 comments:

Katherine said...

UBCS - hilarious!

Julia said...

My understanding is that UBCS can be congenital, but is usually acquired. Another unfortunate condition is PPDT (puckered pizza dough tush), which can sometimes be prevented by appropriate weight training but is incurable after onset. Don't ask me how I know this.

And I want some cobbler. Excessive cobbler consumption has also been linked to PPDT, but given your description of the cobbler, that is not an effective deterrent for me.

Marc said...

You should have Jer talk to others about that gym thing, the Canadians offer an extremely complete gym to military and their dependents, mil types are free, and rates for dependents are about $200 a year. I wouldn't be surprised if the US offers same or better.
No worries about gaffs there and defenetly allot more women working out.

Jess said...

Oh, there are five or six fully equpped gyms on post that I could use (even as a dependent) without charge. I'm just lazy and don't want to drive that far when I've got one down the street from my house.

But the YMCA here also offers military discounts (or in some cases, free memberships), and the convenience means I'll put up with discouraging the occasional guy.

In their defense, I don't wear my wedding ring while I lift weights as it's really not good for the ring and my fingers swell when I work out. So at least they aren't super-creepy-don't-care-if-the-woman-is-married guys.

 
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