Summertime....and the living is loafing

 

I had the loafiest day today. It went beyond lazy into pure, unadulterated loafing.  Caught up on news, gossip, blogs and movies.  Even the cats were loafing:

Happiness Is.....

Watching the Philadelphia Soul win the Arena football championship. Not that I am into arena football - but Jon Bon Jovi is the owner of the Soul and they kept showing close ups of him and Richie Sambora.  It was enough to keep me on the treadmill for 45 minutes - I just don't know if it was the increased MPH or the close ups that had the heart rate up!

A side note - when I was bored today, I chose not to eat, or have a glass of wine (and eat), instead I chose to go to the gym. And I actually liked it. R made me a great play list and it really made the time go by....:-)

Wow....

It's a real smack in the head when you haven't written anything in your blog when you even bore yourself....boy, that needs to change.

I actually have quite a lot going on - I soon will be changing jobs - going back to a career that I really loved, but was a bit burned out on - it took going away from it to realize that what I needed was not a new career, but a sabbatical.  As I move into it, I'll write more about it.  I'm just thrilled to go back and work with some of the smartest, funniest and maddening people I've ever known.  I'm just not ready to write about it in detail because I want to get settled into it first.

I'm shipping my daughter off to North Carolina to stay with her aunt for a week.  My sister just moved into a new place and needs some help straightening things out. R will help her and in return will get a few days at the family beachfront villa. 

Weightwatchers is a struggle - I'm working out like I haven't in years - 45mins of cardio almost daily. Writing everything down, for good or bad, but its mostly good.  The scale, she ain't budging.  This is a repeat of every attempt in the last year.  I've stuck with this longer and am even in the stage where I'm enjoying the workouts again.  I won't give up the activity, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is something medically keeping me from shedding the pounds.  I'm going heavier on cardio than I am on weight training, so I know (because I've done this before) that it's not building muscle mass - as they say, something just ain't right. 

I had my day in court.......among other things

Blogging in the summer is a bitch - I'm not around often enough to post regularly - right now all my discipline is going into managing my food and working out.   So, the good thing is, despite a not so great week with this WW thing (worked about a gazillion hours this week and only worked out twice), I still managed to lose a half pound, so I'm down six so far (yippee!!).   I am on a break from my personal trainer, but with her blessing - I'm focusing more on cardio and building endurance right now, once I start getting a good rhythm down, I will go back. 

On to the most exciting part of my week - my day in court.  As you may have read, I was pulled over and had my Pathfinder impounded.  Today was my day to appear.   I was in court 12 years ago to finalize my divorce, so needless to say, I am a neophyte in this area.  I headed out and went into the court administrator - who told me there was no court today...but wait, it's on my Blackberry!  Oh shit....didn't I tell you?  I got ANOTHER ticket that week (it was bad karma car week) because I drove over some crossed yellow lines at the beginning of the passing lane - after three other folks who'd done the same thing, but I was the one the cop picked - must have been that big peace sign magnet on my car - with my Chico's outfit, I must have SO LOOKED LIKE A RABBLE ROUSER.  I digress... I realized that I had crossed the two dates in the calendar.  So I had to run back, pick up the necessary paperwork and skedaddle over to Edgewater Park court.  I knew I'd be late, so I called the court.  I explained that my situation and was told "Oh, don't worry, honey, our regulars sometimes don't roll in here till noon!"  I assured her I had no intention of becoming a regular but thanked her for letting the court clerk know. 

I arrived at court (not at all late - the judge was running a bit behind); and found it FULL.  I entered my plea with the clerk and asked to speak with the prosecutor.  I took my seat and watched the circus begin.  This town is essentially a blue collar town that borders a low income area.  While there are some lovely areas that are being restored (the kids' dad bought in on that restoration trend), there are still many more areas that are home to a lot of immigrants, first generation Americans, and a transient population.  As a result of that, this town has a pretty tough reputation that may or may not be deserved and the police don't cut many breaks.  All I can say is that it was a surreal experience - watching the "regulars" trot up to the judge, greet him and because of their "experience", they have an astounding knowledge of the law.  Two guys were up there because of restraining orders - one, the parents of the victim were vouching for him and he ticked off what was permissible and what wasn't, and the other guy had a mediation agreement not to see some other guy's kids.  They were back in court because the father had seen this other man with his kids, taking them to the bus stop and in the supermarket (I'm assuming the man with the mediation agreement was the present boyfriend of the kids' mother - it seemed there was a relationship between them and she yelled out in the court room).  The kids' father had taken out the complaint and when the judge questioned the defendant, the defendant noted that the father had CALLED him and asked him to pick up the kids!  The father allowed that he had not seen the man around the kids in some time (since the phone call) = there was no crime. The mediation turned into a court order and the men dismissed.  You could hear them out in hallway screaming at each other.  

When they called for everyone that wanted to talk to the prosecutor to make a plea agreement, I went with the crowd.  I do mean crowd.  The line stretched through the ENTIRE building.  It took an hour just to reach the guy - by the time I got to him, he was cranky and ornery, but I got the charge reduced to failure to present insurance and registration, and because it was a first offense, charges were suspended and I only had to pay court costs.  Cool! Great! I can just go pay and leave, right?  No lady, he says, you can just go wait back in the court until the judge calls you.

The next drama was this guy who sauntered up when called and knew as much about the penalties for driving on the revoked list as the judge - except for one thing - when he cockily told the judge he wasn't worried, it was just a 10 day sentence - the judge told him, "Wrong, for you, it's a 20 day sentence"  Everyone in the courtroom cracked up.  The rest of the day went on with DUIs, vandalism and the like.  Three hours later, I finally get called, questioned by the judge and sentenced to pay the court costs.  I leave to go to the court clerk and find an absolute party down by the clerk's office - This one woman who was pressing charges against one person, and trying to get another bailed out of jail had her three kids in tow, her boyfriend trying corral the kids who were bored, tired and hungry and therefore screaming their heads off.  She was chatting with the 20 day guy who was entertaining the crowd....it took another 30 minutes to just get to the window to pay the ticket.  My head was splitting, because one screaming kid was positioned on a bench, right next to my ear.  The clerk told me, "I told you this was old home week - what a party!"  I smiled, paid my court costs and said, thank you so much for your help, but this is one party I hope to never attend again!!

Unsettling, Satire, Fear Mongering....Take Your Pick

 

For those of you who have not seen the cover of the latest New Yorker, here it is in all its glory:

Now, I love the New Yorker.  I agreed with Miranda in Sex in the City, when she called the New Yorker her porn.  I've been a subscriber for years.  It's smart, it's thought provoking, it can make you incredibly angry or laugh right out loud.  I've turned my kids onto the New Yorker (which means I'm lucky if I even get to read it on a regular basis - I usually have to ferret it out from under R's bed two weeks late), and I usually save back issues to savor again and again.  

This cover is gives me pause.  I realize that its meant to be satire - and heaven knows there were enough pundits to say so.  Many of them said sneeringly, "it's just a joke - the New Yorker audience gets this sort of thing". Well, I AM the New Yorker audience, and I DO get that it's satire, but I would have felt a whole lot better about it if the cartoon, entitled "The Politics of Fear" were an accompanying article about that very subject - instead, there is an article about "Making It" how Chicago shaped Obama. It's an excellent article and I think on the whole, pretty positive, if you agree with the fact that in order for Obama to rise as meteorically as he has, his practices are much more than those of a studied outsider.  The article paints Obama as a master of the political game, albeit one with a social conscience and is genuinely concerned with doing the right thing.  I'm fine with that. I'm not naive enough to think that you can be successful in this day and age without mastering the art of the game.  I respect Obama for that and that's why there's an Obama '08 sticker on my car (and I live in one of the few overwhelmingly Republican towns in a blue state).  It's satire out on its own with no content supporting it that, I think, is a problem.

One of the other things that gives me pause here is that while the New Yorker plays to a particular audience, it is a nationally distributed publication that reaches audiences that are more Fox News alarmists than those who think themselves sophisticated.  It's been demonstrated over and over again that we are a nation that is educated by sound-bite and those sound bites are easily manipulated - swift boats anyone?  Some yokel, flipping on the news will see this cover, not bother to listen to some or any of the description of the satire and firmly believe that Obama is a muslim terrorist.  Think I'm kidding? The Pew Foundation released the results of a survey last week noting that 12% of Americans still think that Obama is not a Christian, but a Muslim.  Hell, 1% think he's JEWISH!!  We are fed so much information and misinformation, that its difficult for even the media savvy to sift through the dreck to get to the heart of the real story - let alone to digest it and form an opinion of it.  No, we basically receive a sound-bite where the political views of the network brass place a subliminal message to bubble up some time later. Whether we question it or not is can determine the outcome of an election.

All that being said, I'm conflicted about criticizing this. I think satire is good, especially political satire - we should expect to think about all the garbage that whirls around us in political campaigns.  It forces us to separate the speculation and the partisanship from the issues. We SHOULDN'T buy everything we're told.  However, we should also avoid hate mongering at all costs - and I think this doesn't just satirize the politics of fear, I think it plays into it.

First Weigh In

Down 5.5lbs!!!

Cardio/Weights - 3x a week.

From experience I know that it won't be like this every week, it'll be more like a 1/2 lb to a 1lb - but for me, this was important to me psychologically.  I tried to do WW a year or so ago, and when I did a 1/4lb the first week - and nothing the second -  it was so disappointing that I quit on it almost immediately.  I had to see some movement in order for me to keep up the motivation.  This is a good start.

Which Austen Heroine Are You?

"> '>I am Elinor