The Weight

About a month ago, I started attending a weight class. I'm well aware that as I age, things can start to break down. Unfortunately, the warranty on my body parts is long expired. I checked in with the God department and got the standard answer, the kind you never read online when it says, do you accept this policy, and you always says yes, otherwise you can't use the site. Two knees per person is apparently the standard. Wouldn't it be nice if it were different?

I also go to Zumba, and out for walks, but apparently, I haven't been doing anything for my core. When Tracy told us during today's session that all the work with kettle bells and rings would really help, I felt some self doubt. "I think I left my core at the Haufbrau House in Germany, back in the seventies," I said. I don't think she believed me. "No, it's in there," Tracy said with her usual cheerful smile. She's possibly the most chipper task master I've ever met. "Okay, one hundred squats and then you're done."

But it's not always true. Just when you think the class is over, she'll pull a little something out of...well. Not her hat. "Hang on to the rings and let's work our glutes!" She sets a timer and everything. The thing we all dread is the personal inspection. Our motto is to look busy all the time, because if she stops to check, her suggestions about posture correction could take a while. "But I was already finished," whimpered someone nameless. (Okay, it was Penny Grove.) We all gave her sympathetic looks while being willing to throw her under the bus if it meant diverting Tracy's attention from ourselves.

It's like going to a spa at the Gulag. Or being stuck in a Gary Larson cartoon about doing leg lifts in hell. 'One million and one! One million and two!' I get the feeling I've been here before, and though I've never believed in previous lives, I get strange flashbacks while I'm busy groaning, sweating and lifting.

a. I was once a slave on a galley ship, rowing for hours through stormy weather and dark nights.

b. An indentured servant in a coal mine working sixteen hour shifts every day.

c. Or, somehow I've mistaken myself for someone who actually enjoys physical pain.
When I leave class I have a vague feeling I should be asking for my prison bucks. And then I remind myself that I pay for these classes because they're good for me.

We all start the morning as confident women, stretching, laughing, happy to begin our day with some vigorous exercise. But a part of me now believes that purgatory, that old Catholic standby, may be real, and Tracy may be in league with you know who to give us all a little well deserved chastisement. When she says into her mike, 'Is everyone finished their hundred kettle bell lifts (it has a better name but I can never remember it) we all holler, 'yes!' Some of us may be lying through our gritted teeth. But its true. We are finished in the best sense of the world. I told my daughter, who was starting a class with Tracy, don't be surprised when you leave it all out on the floor. By that, I mean you are literally collapsed on the floor, wishing someone would put your coat and boots on for you and carry you to your car.

One of my problems is that I'm very unaware of how all my parts should be working during these exercises. 'Tuck in your butt,' Tracy says. 'Drop your shoulders. Belly button in and lined up (what the???) Don't turn your feet like that, Judy.' It's as if while lifting that 20 lb. kettle bell over my head for the eightieth tine, I'm also required to do math.

Having said all this, I have to admit this one very positive thing. I get a feeling of euphoria after class that can last for hours. It may be a 'Wow! I can't believe I survived!' kind of moment. But still. It's a real thing. And I find that my stomach flattens itself out for a while. Apparently, if I keep going, it will last longer. And even though it feels like I'm stuck in the Braveheart movie and being torn apart by four horses, this class is actually good for my joints.

With all my heart, I wish it wasn't. I want it all to be a lie so I can go back to lifting my eight pound weights at home while sitting on my balance ball and watching 'This is Us.' Apparently, I was doing everything wrong, because no one was there to tell me to tuck in my tummy and my butt and straighten my head and don't jut my neck and be careful about my feet because it will save my knees. That's Tracy's job, and she's damn good at it.

So if you see me on Main Street and I seem glum, know that I'm on my way to weight class. If I look like I just won a trip, it means I'm done for the day. And some time soon, I hope I will find my abs, and my core will show up, having drunk enough beer at the Haufbrau House in Germany and willing to take her share of the beating. But not yet. That's an equation that needs a little more work. In honour of all the women in class, those hard core nuts I deal with, I'll leave you with this song, suitably called 'The Weight.' And yes. Do put the weight on Annie. Or Penny. I'm so okay with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo

O Christmas Tree!

Our artificial Christmas tree was 27 years old when we finally sent it to the dump. It had been falling apart for years, and we'd hung onto it for sentimental reasons, and because of the environmental impact of buying a new one. I really wanted a tree from Banff's Spirit of Christmas store, but couldn't seem to get there. So I found one online at Lowe's. I would have bought it locally from Canadian Tire, but they didn't have the one I wanted. My tree came within a week, and I set it up immediately. It is truly the most beautiful fake tree I've ever seen.

It's got 600 lights, over 2000 branch tips, and is heavily covered in artificial snow. I can't keep my eyes off it. It looks like the kind of tree you'd see if you were walking through the woods and little enchanted forest creatures started to sing and scamper about. And then you spotted it, shining like an angel in the clearing, and you just knew it was the one, the same way you recognized true love when it came along.

There are only a few problems with my new tree. When I took the pieces out of the box, I was so busy exclaiming over its beauty that it took me some time to realize I was getting a headache from the smell. Things that come from offshore are often sprayed with chemicals, perhaps to keep them free of pests during their long voyage. Even as I was separating the branches and plugging in the lights, I found myself feeling kind of sick and lightheaded. I also felt stupid, like I'd lost about ten IQ points. I'm calling this feeling 'offshore shipping syndrome.'

Fortunately, I had to leave the house for choir practice. By the time I got back, the smell had abated slightly, though I could still taste chemicals in the back of my throat. My eldest daughter was probably right. I should just have gotten a real tree this year. But I find as I get older that I like to start celebrating earlier. And I like the perfection this tree offers. It helps me imagine Christmas as being stress free and happy, like in all the commercials. But really, there's no more truth in that than there is in all the cheesy, made for TV, Christmas movies. (Sorry, friends who are hooked on them.) For me, real happiness at Christmas comes from remembering my parents, and all those years attending midnight Mass, and always having a stocking hung on the curtains with care. (We didn't have a fireplace.) And the Christmas story, too, of course.The one about Jesus, and not about the boy who wanted a BB gun. Although I like that one a lot, too.

Another problem? My new tree makes the room look shabby by comparison. It's too grand, like Queen Victoria, whereas I'm more like Fagan from Oliver Twist. Every morning, I walk into my living room and we have a small quarrel, the tree and I. 'Stop being so damned majestic,' I say. She doesn't answer. She's kind of stuck up, and her ego is growing by the day. But oh, she's beautiful. Now, here is a photo of her royal fakeness as taken from the website. (Which does not compare to her sheer physical presence in my living room.)

Even Riskier Business

A month ago, I decided to make some changes around our house. The living room and front entrance needed painting but I didn’t have a tall enough ladder, so I started with my bedroom. When I sewed the curtains ten years ago, Clarence had scoured our back garage for the right rod. I hate the ones that sag, so he found an incredibly heavy steel bar long enough to reach right across the room. It wasn’t a problem for us to thread the curtains onto the rod and then poke it through the wooden thingamajigs on the wall. (Googled the word. Couldn’t find it.) Taking them off by myself was much trickier. 

Yes, I have people I can call for help. But I’m impulsive, and when I decide to do something, nothing can stop me, including my own common sense. The rod was only about four inches short of the room’s width. I managed to lift it from it’s hardware and then pull the curtain rings off, my shoulders shaking as I held the whole thing up in what felt like a circus routine. Then, moving the ladder over, I removed the other curtain. After, carefully gripping the long steel bar in both hands, I descended the ladder backwards, feeling pretty awesome about the experience so far. This changed when I turned slightly and broke the glass on my favorite bedroom picture. Oh well. I took a deep breath and inched backwards, not noticing the two drinking glasses full of lemon chunks and water. I smashed both of them. Made a note to clean up later. Wondered why I had two of them. Then I painted the bedroom. 

The next thing I had to deal with was the missing baseboards. My friend Tom helped me pick up the fourteen foot lengths at the hardware store, because he has a truck and is smart about how to load things. My brother had already shown me which saw to use, and said he’d come over and give me a lesson when I was ready. But I have a feeling that my dead father found a way to get in touch with him, because we haven't talked since. ‘Are you kidding me?’ dad would ask. ‘Clarence is up here having a nervous breakdown!’ "I can't look,' I picture my mother saying, covering her eyes with both hands. 

And yet I know Clarence would want me to finish the job. I’ve been hiring people for the harder things like re-shingling the garage roof and replacing the siding. Also for plumbing situations. I took our dishwasher apart once and after seeing a thousand pieces lying on the kitchen floor, Clarence decided we should buy a new one. I have since recognized my limitations in certain departments. 

Next I took my closet door off and carried it to the basement for painting. It turned out well. I’d really like a new one but then I’d have to get someone to help me because I don’t know how to do the whole door jam thing. I guess I could YouTube it. Anyway, when I was putting it back on its hinges, I accidentally dropped the screwdriver which for some reason I was holding in my hand, and it put a small dent in the hardwood floor. Oh well. 

Once I’ve figured out the saw and the air compressor/nail gun thing, I will update you all. But this Riskier Business blog post is not just about carpentry and household repair. 

We are learning some very challenging pieces for our choir concert this Christmas. Somehow, Mark and Crystal, our fearless leaders, have mistaken us for other people and not the dunderheads many of us are. Yes, we have talented singers who read music well, but then there’s the rest of us. The musicians who make up the group Pentatonix are probably some of the world’s finest singers. Yet we’re doing one of their Christmas medleys. I find myself looking around at the other altos and thinking, is it just me or are we in an alternate universe where we’re pretending to know what we're doing? And this other song, Mary Did You Know, where we sing the tenor part, then the alto part, and some of it is so low that only people shaving twice a day can reach the notes.

And then there’s the piece de resistance, the Sugar Plum Fairy. It sounds very light and lilting, as if the Altos are tiptoeing down the staircase on Christmas morning, ready for the best surprise ever. Our voices rise and fall, saying 'Ta da ta da, Dum, da da da da, but then suddenly, taking us and our future audience by surprise, we sing a very high opera note for six beats. Think of the worst part of the Meryl Streep movie, Flora Foster Jenkins, and you’ve got it right. Crystal said people could laugh, so don't feel bad if you do.

It’s kind of sweet, when you think of the faith our leaders have in us. It’s like they live in a world where if you want something bad enough, it will happen. ‘The Altos were really getting it right today, don’t you think?’ I picture Mark saying to Crystal, who is in the bathroom weeping too hard to hear him. 

If you live in Flin Flon and don’t have tickets yet, please. This may be the best concert we’ve ever done. We’ve got the lovely Joanna Majoko as our leading lady, and then there’s the rest of us. It’ll be exciting, I promise, and the suspense as to how it will all go is just an added bonus. Perhaps there'll be some audience participation during that high screeching note. After all, we need all the help we can get. Ta Ta Ta Ta, La La La la, Ahhhhhhhhhh! (No, it's higher than that.) But good try, and we'll see you on December 9th.