Category: Home Life

Fiendish Friday: I am too old for this sh…

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

This last weekend my hubs and son flew to another state for a family reunion. I stayed home. My FIL was pretty difficult about the timing, I would have had to cancel two of the classes I teach and so I opted out.  At the time I thought, woot, girls weekend. I called an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while and suggested she come visit. She couldn’t do it.

Ok, weekend to myself. I’ll make plans with local friends and hot yoga a lot.

Then the week before said weekend, my girlfriend calls. All three of her kids had the stomach flu, one at a time, then the youngest got it again, and then her dog had kennel cough and would throw up with every coughing bout. She needed a break and was coming out. Sweet!

First night I invited a bunch of local friends over to drink, eat, and make merry. Stayed up til after one doing so. Ouch.

So ok Saturday morning hurt a little. 6AM the alarm goes off. I stumble out. (Side bar: I am on a mission to get up at 5AM so I can hot yoga twice a week in the AM and write for 90 minutes the other 3 days. I’m in the process of rolling back my wake up.) Coffee. Which we drink for 3 hours before walking the dog. Shopping all day. Wine tasting. More drinking at home watching The Martian. (Matt Damon is getting old. I prefer his Bourne/Oceans 11 look.)

Sunday we hot yinyasa. It’s this cross Yin and Vinyasa class. New teacher. The class is all yin, almost no vinyasa. Damn, I was hoping to work off a few of those alcohol calories. But that doesn’t stop us from going to Cinebarre and drinking more with another movie. She lives in a state where you would never be able to get a real drink in a theater. LOL.

All this said. I hurt. All the sugar in the alcohol is killing me. My muscles are aching and cramping as all the water my body was holding to process said sugar is recycled out. I still haven’t caught up on my sleep.

So to remind myself why I don’t drink or eat sugar….I am cleaning the house to get ready for my next friend who is arriving in 5 days. This friend and her hubs probably top the list of people the hubs and I consume the most alcohol with. I NEED a big reminder. LOL. Wish me luck, I need it.

Fiendish Friday: I’m Fat

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 10 Comments

This morning while prepping my next few lessons I was caught by the oddest thought that just thrilled me. I am normal fat.

As in, I can see past my stomach to my thighs.

As in, normal people stores carry sizes that fit me.

As in, my belly doesn’t hang to the sides past my hips anymore.

These are really exciting things.

I know they sound terrible. And if you’ve never been truly fat, I understand why you would be confused.

But imagine being so fat you almost can’t shop in the fat girl stores anymore.

Imagine being so fat, people don’t even make fun of you for being fat, they pretend you don’t exist.

Imagine being so fat, your diabetes is so bad, your kidneys are being damaged and if you don’t do something to reverse the rate of damage your kidneys will fail in the next 2-3 years. Oh and you are not a candidate for the transplant list because you are so fat.

Imagine thinking forget seeing my grandkids, I won’t live to see my child graduate high school.  I won’t live to see my child get to high school.

After all that, being normal fat, is super exciting. Actually saying I still have 50 pounds to go, and it not being a lie, is super exciting. Knowing I need a plan for home schooling the kiddo through to college, super exciting (and scary but that’s another post for another time, LOL). Making plans to move to Europe in a few years, because I’ll still be ALIVE, is super exciting.

Yes, I’m fat, normal fat. Go on make fun of me. I’m here. And I will be for a good long time.

Fiendish Friday: I hear it in your voice…

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 4 Comments

This will be a short one. Not all rants are created equal but this one bugs the living bleep out of me. It mostly happens at co-op. I have a bit of a rep for being a hard ass. I tend to be a very polite bulldog. I don’t yell, scream, name call, or anything else overtly rude but I don’t let up if I think I am in the right. I’m giving you all this wind up so you get the scene in mind.

Fairly often, some parent I don’t really know or that I know just well enough to realize doesn’t like me, will come up to me and in tones of utter shock and disbelief tell me how sweet, polite, kind, and adorable my son is.

And while the compliment could be lovely, the rub is there. Their total gobsmacked confusion that a biotch like me produced this amazing kid. You know they curse me at night, “how did I get so damn lucky cause I certainly don’t deserve it?” LOL

Fiendish Friday: Wildflower

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

I took the kiddo swimming in Berlin. Our hotel had a pool in the basement. Very standard in European hotels. And they tend to be small, like 10 x 3 meter pools, meant for laps.

As I was showering afterwards I found myself thinking about Wildflower. I suppose because the last time I was swimming laps in a European basement pool, I was training for it. Wildflower is a triathlon in California. It’s kind of a nasty one. They have 3 distances, sprint, oly, and half. The half is so harsh it is a qualifier for Iron Man Kona. One of the few halves that is a qualifier.

Anyway, I was doing Team in Training, as a way to escape the ridiculous vacuousness of my wedding. And training had been super fun. I had raised all the funds, including a donation from my doctor when I went to see him for a broken ankle during the training process. LOL. I have made skills.

So come race day, I got down to the staging area so early almost no one else was there, well no participants I knew anyway. The director of our TNT Team had said that our race tags were different from others and that we couldn’t go just by the number, we needed to go to the outside row first, then find our number. Totally clear right? So I get down there, it’s like 530 in the morning, and I go to the outside row, find my number, and set up all my stuff. Then I head off to get coffee, pee, find friends, etc.

When I come back, there are some people, specifically three guys setting up their stuff. Three tall, zero percent body fat, lean muscled guys with really expensive looking equipment. huh. We sort of look at each other for a moment and then the penny drops.

I gulp and say, “I think I’m in the wrong spot.” Two of the guys look away and choke down their laughter, one politely says with a German accent, “I think you might be, yes.”

Nothing like being a 300 plus pound, totally out of your league, first time sprint triathlete in the profession athlete line. Oops.

Apparently it was the other outer row I was supposed to go to.  This is why I firmly believe it never pays to be early. LOL

Fiendish Friday: Amsterdam

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 7 Comments

So we just got back from a couple weeks abroad, so you’ll get a couple Fiendish Fridays that might be more like travel reviews. Deal with it. smiles.

We landed in Amsterdam, the kiddo and I. He had a full night’s sleep on the plane and I had none. We had a four seat row to ourselves, so I showed him how to stretch out on three of those seats and still keep his seat belt buckled. But three seats weren’t quite enough for him and every time I dozed off upright, he would hit me trying to get half my seat as well. sigh.

The hubs told me he cleared both our common credit card for international travel but mine didn’t work when we landed and the 150 Euro he gave me before he left turned out to be 130 sheckles and 20 Euro. Good thing I never depend on a man to take care of me. LOL. I had called my own CC company and got international clearance on my card, so we weren’t totally screwed.

We went to the zoo the first day, sunlight to reset out clocks. I was sadly disappointed. The last time I was at the Amsterdam zoo it was very enjoyable. No idiot controls. Animals right there. They fed the lions live rabbits for a chase. Not anymore. Now it’s all controlled. Very Americanized. Very disappointing. But the kiddo had fun on the play ground.

vangoghmuseum-s0005v1962-800
Photo Courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum

Next day, we met the hubs for coffee. Then took a canal boat tour with my uncle in law.
Kiddo loved the Van Gogh museum. They get high marks for having a scavenger hunt for kids. The kiddo won a postcard with the Van Gogh painting of his choice. I was quite surprised by his choice. The Potato Eaters. Very unexpected.

We capped the day with an educational program and tour of the Anne Frank house. Kiddo was not impressed. It’s so hard to get him to grasp the impact of WWII.

Friday the kiddo was sick. He had a nasty cough and I got to go to a pharmacy and explain in Dutch, which I don’t speak, what I needed medication wise for him. LOL. It worked out ok. Although I was a bit worried with the big green leaf on the front of the box. I asked the hubs about it when we finally got to see him and he told me it wasn’t pot laced cough syrup. Whew. LOL

All in all, Ams was disappointing. We walked most everywhere because it’s not that big. But literally every block someone was smoking marajuana on the street. The smell of second hand weed makes me nauseous. So I spent four days trying not to vomit. Bleh. I know, I know the ridiculousness of a drug prescribed to help with nausea making me nauseous is not lost on me.

Oh, and the kiddo apparently inherited my hubs terrible inability to adjust to time zones. He woke me at 2A every day, saying he couldn’t sleep. I’d give him half a melatonin and he would go back to sleep, but I wouldn’t sigh.

A special note on Schiphol airport. It sucks. 6 security lines, four of which to check our passports. One of them, we had a passport check and interview, walked 20 feet down a hallway and stood in another line for a passport check and interview. I shit you not.

Fiendish Friday: Protest

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment
I usually stay away from hot button topics like politics and religion. I understand it’s how you get followers, I’ve heard the lecture many a time, but it’s not the authentic experience I want. Lately I’ve had the desire to blog about the things happening in our world but I’ve refrained and it occurs to me, refraining isn’t being authentic either.
If in the course of your protest, people are beaten to the ground with shovels, hit in the head with bike locks, chased down the block. If you destroy infrastructure with baseball bats. This is not a protest. This is a riot.
ri·ot

NOUN

  1. a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd
Yep, a riot.
pro·test

NOUN

  1. a statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to something
So let’s talk about effective protest. Real protest with long terms effects.
Mahatma Ghandi.
He lead an entire country to independence via non violent civil disobedience.
Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community’s struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban laborers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women’s rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, but above all for achieving or self-rule. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi attempted to practice nonviolence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. India got it’s independence in 1947.
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Ghandi
I am afraid of the change today’s “protesters” wish to see. Violence daily in the streets. No thank you.
I prefer to embrace this: “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

Fiendish Friday: Behind the Curtain

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 13 Comments

Somehow this conversation came up at the coop the other day. We all sort of skirted around it. But as a writer, I find when complicated ideas start to haunt me I feel the need to write about them.

The Great Oz. Powerful. Scary. Epically bad special effects. LOL But the idea embodied in the character is powerful. Behind the curtain is a small little man afraid people will find out who he is, how little he is, how little power he has. Afraid they will not like or respect him if they know who he is.

I often feel like OZ. Sure, I am funny and charming. It attracts many. It also keeps most at arms distance. I like them there. I am safe behind my curtain. I use humor and charm as that curtain. Most people are more than happy with this. I am careful to limit the time I spend with them. To leave them laughing.

Because I am safe behind the curtain. Behind the curtain you don’t know how insecure I really am. How afraid I am that you will not like or respect me.

In the last 6 months or so I have tried to be more open with people. To share more about me. Tentative little steps. And I have found people push back, hard. They don’t want to know I am insecure. They don’t want to know I too struggle. They want me to be funny and charming and strong and help them with their emotional baggage.

Which makes me wonder, was the Great OZ protecting just himself behind that curtain or was he protecting the land of OZ as well….

Fiendish Friday: Brick and Mortar

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

For years now I have quietly nodded when people raged at Amazon for putting brick and mortar businesses out of business. Yes Amazon was convenient but I could see their arguments about the mom and pop store. I didn’t feel like I could have a dog in the fight though.I have family that works for Amazon.

This week I attempted to buy good quality shoes for my son. He outgrows shoes every 8-10 weeks, or he was for a while, so I was buying medium ish quality shoes because even semi cheap shoes can last 8 weeks, and at 25 a pair, that adds up 6 times a year. But his feet have only grown about a size in 6 months and he’s been complaining about his legs hurting. So I decided since he had slowed down, I would spring for good quality shoes. Ideally, keens for the running/hiking functionality.

We went to several upscale stores, looking for keens. Guess what I heard at each one? “We don’t carry kids shoes anymore.”

You have got to be kidding me. Who stops carrying something that by it’s very nature has to be replaced every few months? No one who wants to make money apparently.

Wild guess where I got exactly what my kiddo wanted and at a decent price?

Amazon. laughing, what else was I gonna do?