I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

For Alycia's birthday, I gave her a copy of Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. NOT because she needs it- seriously, girlfriend already looked better than I ever have about nine seconds after giving birth. I know, because I was there. Rather, she had complained to me several times about wanting to find a good workout DVD and I told her about my love-hate relationship with Jillian. She mentioned borrowing it but I knew that if I loaned it to her I would never in a million years ask for it back ("No no! You keep it! No really!") so I just bought her one instead. I know, my dedication to physical exercise is inspiring.

So today I received an email from Alycia with the subject line 'f'. It read:

"i just finished the first workout on that DVD. F***. I think I'm going to puke."

(Clearly, being a mother has cleaned up her act, because a year ago, there would not have been asterisks in that sentence.)

I just appreciate the affirmation that it is not all in my head. Jillian, you are the devil and everyone knows it.

I've been running more than shredding lately (though I've managed to steer clear of participating in any high school sports), as the weather has been generally agreeable. Also, when I'm busy, it's easier to go running right after work than try to work in a shred at 11pm. Let's pause for a moment and think of the hundreds of millions of things I'd rather do than shred after a 14-hour day, including ripping all of my own fingernails out and titrating a solution. Oh my gosh I hated high school chemistry class.

Anyway I'm headed for a well-balanced weekend. Confirmation retreat tonight, a celebration of Fall tomorrow, and then the zoo on Sunday.

I really do not need ESPN the Ocho... no one does

I think if Dante were writing The Inferno today, he would reserve the seventh circle of hell for Charter Representatives. Seriously.

Look, Charter guy, I don't think you're stupid- I really don't. I just think there must be some sort of bug on the phone line that garbles the message between my mouth and your ears. Because when I said "I'd like to cancel my service" what you apparently heard was "I'd like to upgrade to the most expensive package you offer". And you phrased it in such a way that I replied by saying "Yes. That's correct. Do that." So don't act all put out when I ask you what my next bill will be and then freak out when you give me a figure that's twice the amount of the original number I wanted slashed.

In other news that DOESN'T make me want to slit my wrists, I had the most lovely time this past weekend at the Sippin' Safari. Now, gorillas and booze are two things I never would have put together, but thank heavens the good people at the Greenville Zoo are capable of thinking outside the box. Turns out wine and primates are a perfect complement.

Let me set up this delightful scenario for you: 4 hours on a Friday night spent eating any number of delicious foods (including cupcakes with little icing animals on them) and drinking about 45 different varieties of wine... all while strolling leisurely past monkeys, lemurs and tigers. Let's ignore the fact that the "fence" surrounding the elephant habitat barely came up to my waist. If I can climb over it, I feel pretty confident that Dumbo can as well. But fear of stampedes aside, it was truly a perfect evening.

And now we've moved merrily into autumn time and I am just itching to get my hands on a bushel or 17 of apples so that I can continuously run the crockpot full of applesauce until Thanksgiving. Too bad it's still 85 degrees out...

Family Time

Fall, in all its splendor, has finally fell in Greenville. The trees turn slowly here, creating a fireworks effect with green centers and orangey-red tips. In the spirit of fall, my parents and I decided to go apple-picking on Saturday. I know what you’re thinking- they came from Michigan to South Carolina and you’re going apple-picking?! That’s like me driving twelve hours up to Pittsburgh to buy some peaches. But actually, North Carolina is the 4^th-largest producer of apples in the United States (or so the Visitor’s Center tells me). At any rate, the weather was perfect, the scenery divine, and I came home with more apples than I’ll ever know what to do with.


Apples are far and away my favorite fruit. I love everything about them, from their shiny red peels to their down-home American scent to their juice-rolling-down-your-chin goodness. Apple pie, apple crisp, applesauce, apple cider, dried apple chips, apple leather (like fruit rolls ups) caramel apples, caramel apple suckers… you name it, I love it.

Speaking of things I love, one of the best things about a visit from my parents is the virtual cornucopia of goodies they bring me. The following is an incomplete, but accurate list of what fell out of the back of the station wagon this time:

• a turkey baster
• 2 (more) bikes
• a space heater
• the movie Dan in Real Life*
• a coat rack
• 2 windshield ice scrapers (question mark? this is South Carolina...)
• my yearbook
• 1 (large) bag of dirt
• 10 pounds of deli meat
• a crockpot
  

And finally, my favorite quote of the weekend…

mom: "didn't MargaretAnn commit suicide?"
dad: "whaaa?"
mom: "Oh, no, wait. She had leukemia. That's right."

*neither of my parents have any idea where this came from. When asked about it, they both replied “I don’t know, I’ve never seen that before- isn’t it yours?” I explained to them that I hadn’t even seen the movie until I got it from my netflix this summer, and I certainly never owned a copy. We asked my brother if it had possibly accidentally ended up in my parents’ stuff when they visited a few weeks ago, but nope. My mom thinks she may have accidentally stolen it from one of her students.