Exercise, my Religion

Rain, rain go away, I want to go swimming today. With the skies pouring an ocean of water on my thirsty gardens I had to look to indoor exercise to satisfy the Exercise Monster inside my physique. Decided to do The Exercise CD today. Now I have two exercise CDs. One is 45 minutes long and involves lifting weights and the other is 55 minutes and uses a tone band. They are from the Leslie Sansone CD collection and like most, if not all, exercise DJs, Leslie is as annoying as biting flies before the rain storm. She has an obnoxious, squeaky laugh and she laughs at the slightest thing. You know those people. They are usually sitting behind me at the movies and I want to remind them: everything is not funny. Humor is relative. There needs to be a ratings scale here and if you laugh at everything then nothing is funny.

She also says things like, "Ooooh, sweating feels good!" No, it doesn't. Sweat is greasy and itchy and makes my eyes sting. It's like saying, Ooooh, a runny nose feels good! Just like those endless women's magazines that feature articles on exercise between Can this Marriage Be Saved? and several chicken apricot recipes. They always say the same thing. Exercise is the one thing that we women do for ourselves. If I wanted to to something for myself it would be a scary movie CD, diet Coke and Kessler and a bag of chocolate stars.

In all fairness Leslie needs to be energetic and a non-stop talker. It keeps us huffing and puffing along with her. She is perky and she is peppy. Two of the worse characteristics I can define another human being by. Look at that picture. Her mouth is open like that throughout the entire workout.

Over the years my exercise needs have changed as my body ages and I needed to start thinking of high impact on fragile knees and ankles. And that is what happened with the last CD I had been using. Some guy in Hawaii with black greasy curls and whose mother was one of the exercisers behind him and several blonde nubiles that had trouble counting the reps and moving at the same time. But they would look at Greasy guy with boundless adoration. When you view these CDs hundreds of time you start making up stories about the exercisers to while away the time. Greasy enjoyed his status as Exercise God in the eyes of these too-young-for him girls and he would still have dinner on Sunday with mother. There was a lot of jumping around on that CD and I noticed sharp pains in the joints so moved onto Leslie following a friend's advice.

I like the upper body strength workout. Hauling a jumbo toddler around all week my back muscles had cause to complain. So, I started doing the weights after Adam's birth and I was in prime shape by the time Cameron made her appearance. I started with 3#, and then to 5#, and even 8# for half of the session. Now I hold steady at 5#. Who I am trying to impress anyway? I just want to keep the numbers down (weight, cholesterol, BP.)

Every couple of years Leslie churns out another CD. She's got one that uses spiritual music with the exercise. And the music gets faster as the pace picks up. You have never heard Amazing Grace played at bullet speed? Here's your chance. I see her latest CD has more toys: some sort of wrist weight that attaches with rubber cords to a belt around your waist. I guess the house in the Hamptons must need new carpeting.

Hauled Sonny out to the Mud Lake Bluegrass Festival in the afternoon. The Ditch Lilies were the main band with their big hit, Dead Skunk in the Street. What is it about bluegrass music? Always has to have a little crude in it. And it's a lot like salsa music. After about 45 minutes you're thinking, you got anything else, guys?

Did get a swim in. Silver Surfer shared the lane. She kicked me so I kicked her back. It's a start.