R.T. 01-09 ~ Exercise, Who Me?

I confess. I ate my way through the holidays.

Now I have a colossal case of Mormon-Catholic guilt. Not that my two religions have anything to do with my November-December munch fest. Admittedly though, both churches have really mastered the art of “putting on a spread!” This brings me to my resolution. Now that I’ve supersized my posterior, it’s time to do something about it.

Even my hair stylist, Rachelle has very few tricks left in her bag for me. I sit in her chair and say “whatever you do, just make me look younger and thinner.” I fear I’m beyond her miracles.

So, I need to get off my posterior and MOVE! I’m certain Trina Reyes could have a field day with me! No offense Trina, but I avoid Personal Trainers. I’ve never met a lazy personal trainer who doesn’t like exercise. So, we basically have nothing in common. “You mean I have to exercise EVERY DAY? Who me?”

My mother-in law, Marj, goes to Curves almost every day. She is very committed. When she first started out, she was cautioned her to monitor her heart rate and stay in the “safe zone” for her age. She looked up and the brightly colored poster on the wall—staring at it for some time as she kept moving. She then turned to the nice Curves lady and said, “What if I’m not up there?” The Curves Target Heart Rate Chart includes movers and shakers up to age 80. Marj is 85. Why can’t I get inspiration from her?

Speaking of inspiration, I get a little every time I hear or see my radio friend, Dave. He went on some special diet and lost 50 pounds. He talks about it on the radio and you see him on billboards. And, yes, he DOES look younger and thinner.

Maybe I could use a little of my local, celebrity status to join a weight loss program and get the whole thing comped! I can see it now… “Hi, I’m Gretchen Anderson. After I ate all the turkey, ham and rib roast over the holidays, I couldn’t fit my fat arss in my ski pants…”

Rethinking it, I should hold out for something bigger. Actually, two things bigger. I’ll reserve my celebrity endorsement for new boobs. Why not? I could ski up to the camera and make the same claims—but with a newly enhanced chest.

“Hi I’m Gretchen. No one looks at how big my butt got in 2008…they just look at these! I feel better about myself, people notice me more and I have more self esteem.” Now there’s an endorsement! I’m sure there’s a plastic surgeon out there somewhere trying to think up a new marketing campaign. It’s fresh, catchy…but there’s one problem. I’m a big chicken when it comes to the prospect of anesthesia, scalpels and implants.

So, I guess it all comes back to good, old-fashioned movement and push-up bras. My resolution is to move more and spend more of Mister Man’s money at Victoria’s Secret. Hold me to it—won’t you?

MR. MAN ~ Random Thoughts from 11-08

“Why do you call your husband ‘Mr. Man’?” I was asked.

“Because it’s better manners than calling him Man Pig.”

Man Pig.

Mr. Man Pig.

Mr. Man. ... That’s how it evolved. I also call him Buster, Lovey and a couple other names. He answers to most of them.

The “Man Pig” thing emerged years ago. I was single and enjoying weekend coffees with my girlfriend, Kelly. One fine Saturday, she looked up from her latte and personal ads and proclaimed, “Men are pigs!” This statement definitely needed elaboration.

“Listen to this,” Kelly mocked. “‘Single white male, 50, looking for female. Must be 21-36, outgoing, size in proportion to weight. Send letter and PHOTOS to…blah, blah, blah.’ He’s a pig!” Kelly asserted. I pondered this awhile and determined you can find a little pigginess in all males. It’s true. Some are just a little piggier than others. Many of them are handsome. They make you coffee every morning, help the kids with their math homework and spend an inordinate amount of time multi-tasking while reading the sports page. (You would think their legs would go to sleep!)

I have a husband pig. I also have son pigs, a father pig and two over-the-top brother pigs. I even have a cousin-in-law-pig. They’re all pigs.

With a lot of time on his hands, my cousin-in-law pig decided he was going to relieve himself in every state capitol men’s room and write a book about it! He likened the project to writing a guide book to America’s Bed & Breakfasts. He started on the east coast with a notebook and a big old container of Metamucil. Charlie claims Albany, New York has a very nice men’s room—complete with marble doors and stalls. He also argues the men of Vermont have a class A men’s room in their statehouse. But, admits it may have been his urgent need to poop, as he squeezed his cheeks together while racing up the steps of the capitol! Ooh. Nasty.

Just the other day, our youngest son, Bubba, stood in front of the refrigerator for (I kid you not) five minutes. Just staring. Yep, mouth open with that pre-teen glazed look on his face. After all the cold air had escaped the fridge, he realized there was only healthy food in there. He then let out a long, rattally, truck-driver-belch and finally closed the doors. In essence, he trapped his essence in the refrigerator and walked off. I just shook my head. My husband smiled broadly, “aren’t you proud of him?” Son pig.

My sister-in-law, Punkin and her husband, Jon, were appalled when they recently visited their son’s apartment that he shares with three other young college students. “Those boys hadn’t done dishes in weeks!” she said. “Dirty plates were stacked five and six high…it was disgusting.” Not a Felix Unger in the bunch!

As I said, Man Pigs have redeeming qualities (that’s why I still live with several). I’ve always said my brothers; Nathan and Christian were just warm up acts for my husband. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all. And, I believe this information serves me, and other women like me, very
well. Knowing their degree of pigginess leads to better understanding of their maleness!

The "P" Word (as printed in the Eagle Independent)

“Since when is it okay to drop the F-bomb on the Family Movie Channel?” I exclaimed. Mister Man had channel surfed and finally found one of his perennial favorites, Die Hard. We’ve see it many times. In fact, it was the first action movie I ever saw. Prior to his talking me into watching it, I steered clear of anything with a hint of violence. But, Mister Man—powered by testosterone, wore me down. It ends the same way each time we watch it, but we still enjoy it.

This time however, our kids were in the room with us. They started counting the F-bombs before we could mount a search party to find the clicker. Mister Man looked at me and said “don’t they bleep out the F-bombs? It’s FMC for crying out loud!” Unfazed, the two teens and one tween responded with “Dad, we hear it all the time at school.” Great.

Silly us. We thought FMC stood for the Family Movie Channel. Nope. It’s the Fox Movie Channel. That explains it.

I think as parents we have an added filtering mechanism that switches on when our kids are in our midst. Really. If the spawn hadn’t been in the room with us, John McLane could have spewed forth all his colorful effity…eff…effs without much regard. There are a lot and after awhile you don’t notice them.

Not noticing word usage recently put me in a predicament with our 9-year-old, the tween, the baby of the family. I’m still waiting for the right opportunity to correct it. Otherwise, it will come back to me. We were watching a seemingly innocent TV program, when one character said something about porno. I didn’t hear it—but she did. My little girl looked up at me with her big green eyes and asked, “Mom, what’s porno?” In a split second, I decided I wasn’t going to be straight forward with her—not this time.

Mister Man and I have always been straight forward with our five kids. Margaret is the youngest and I just had a moment where I didn’t want to tell her the truth. In the past, I explained to our older kids what condoms were when they asked at a very young age. We explained to our teens (when they were tweens) that mom’s dear friend is a lesbian…and we’ve never avoided talks about the birds and the bees.

But, at that moment, being straight forward was not anything I felt compelled to be. So, in that split second decision, Jiffy-Pop came into my mind. I stared back into those big green eyes and said “old fashioned popcorn.”

There was a brief description of how you prepare it on the stove, “the popcorn container gets real big and ‘puffs up’ and when it’s finished filling the tin foil, the popcorn is ready to eat!” She looked at me and said, “We’ll have to try that porno sometime.”

I have so far defended my actions by saying that I was lying for the greater good. I’ve told this story to several family members. Through their howls and tears, they have suggested I tell her the truth before she invites a friend over for some old-fashioned porno and a movie.

A Multi-Faceted Wake-Up Call

I belong to the Sisterhood of the Polar Bear Pants. The pants were a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law, Georgia. They are thermal cotton with a polar bear print and are the most comfortable pajama pants I’ve ever worn. They came with a matching shirt that had one polar bear across the chest. I ditched that, thinking I didn’t need one more thing calling attention to my lack of family endowment.

The polar bears, adorned with little, blue and green scarves, are precariously placed. Yes. My polar bear pants have big, white bears coming out my—backside. My husband, Mr. Man, pointed this out in a much more direct fashion. “Hey Gret, did ya know there are polar bears comin’ out yer arss?” Truth be told, they’re coming and going. Even my children snicker behind me. That won’t dissuade me, I still wear them.

I received another nice gift in May of 2007. The kids were so excited. I was blindfolded and led to the backyard. As I removed the blindfold, they lowered a metal, window ladder from a 2nd story bedroom. Each took turns climbing out the window and down to safety. A successful fire drill as a Mother’s Day gift. If “the time” ever came, we would be ready.

I was especially thankful for that present last winter when Mr. Man and I awoke to the screaming sound of our home smoke detectors. We were both out of bed in half a heartbeat! Quick! Get the kids. Do we smell smoke? Why are ALL the detectors going off at once? Why can’t we smell anything? Call 9-1-1! Why won’t they shut off? Check the attic!

Within minutes a truck rolled up and four firefighters fanned out through the house like a swat team. In less than 90 seconds, the smoke detectors stopped. Silence. Beautiful, silence.

As I stood with the kids in the living room, I watched as the firemen descended our stairs. Oh! My! Greek God! In all the commotion, I hadn’t noticed these guys were HOT. I know. It was 3am. But, I recognize drop-dead gorgeous when I see it! I was having my own little moment, basking in their presence, when I checked to see if my teenage daughter saw…what I saw. Nope. That was good. For the record, Mr. Man didn’t notice their overwhelming good looks either. That was good too.

There I was, doing my basking. When all of the sudden I realized something very bad. I had on an old, ratty sleep shirt and my POLAR BEAR PANTS! “Gretchen, keep eye contact and maybe all four of them won’t look down at your polar bear pants,” I thought.
Maybe I could backup slowly, to the back of the couch and they wouldn’t be able to see what was coming or going.

No. Eye contact is the best plan.

Mr. Man was deep in conversation with the leader of the hunky firefighters when I heard “dusty.” What? I’m keeping eye contact with the Adonis firefighters…trying to maintain my cool and the leader of the hunk machine is telling me I have a DUSTY HOUSE? Yep. Well, at least dusty detectors. That's what caused them to go off in the middle of the night.

So, to save you from being in the same predicament—less the polar bear pants, remember this autumn when we “fall back” change your smoke detector batteries and dust those little suckers! (Originally published: Eagle Independent / October 2008)
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Follow-up to last months, “What’s in a Name?” My sister’s family settled on “Huey” (as in Hefner). It suits him. The Bichon stud already takes his job seriously!

Naming Pets

Fair reader, let me pose this question: What’s in a name?

Answer: a lot, especially if you ask that of the people around me.

I recently procured, for my mom, the dog breeder, a champion, stud dog from Canada. She wanted to name him “Prince” because he came from Prince George.

There was a collective groan from all of us.

This puppy needed a good name. He already had several strikes against him. He’s an adorable, white, fluffy Bichon Frise…STUD! He really needed a manly name…not Fluffy, not Cotton, NOT Prince.

If there isn’t a great deal of forethought when naming a pet, it backfires. Case in point: Pooh Bear, our lovable pound puppy.

The Idaho Humane Society told us he was part Golden Retriever, part Chow-Chow. Pooh Bear looked like a big, fluffy version of Winnie the Pooh. I wanted to name him Clifford—because I was certain he’d grow up to be a “Big Red Dog.” My husband insisted on “Pooh Bear, because our future kids wouldn’t be able to pronounce ‘Clifford,’” he argued.

This logic backfired.

For the next 13½ half years my husband spent mornings encouraging Pooh to do his business. “Pooh…pee! Pooh…poo. Pooh…peeeeeee!” This was especially entertaining when we went camping. Upon hearing the command “Pooh, pee” neighboring campers would crane their necks just to see what the heck was going on! No manly-man would say, “Pooh, go potty.” Our dog was smart, but saying “Pooh, go number two,” just wouldn’t cut it either. So, there he was…my husband, Mr. Man, sounding like a broken record and getting the strangest looks!

Recently, our friends, the DiMattios adopted a big, Scooby Doo of a dog. A Great Dane they named “Kratos,” taken from the God of War video game. It’s very appropriate. The dog is HUGE. I don’t know what kind of K9 war Kratos would have—but I don’t want any part of it!

Our other dog spent her first two weeks in our home under the moniker of “Spike.” Finally, we landed on the name “Beaujie” when she went head-long into a glass of Neuveau Beaujolais. She emerged red-faced and very satisfied! To this day, no open glass of wine is safe when Beaujie’s around.

Last summer, as we grieved the loss of Pooh Bear, the kids and I decided we’d find a long-haired, German Shepherd for Mr. Man and surprise him for his 50th birthday. We had just seen and l-o-v-e-d the movie “Transformers.” The kids and I wanted to name the dog “Optimus Prime.” We’d call him “Opie” for short. Mr. Man was elated! He’s had a long and enduring affection for the German Shepherd breed. But when we told him the new dog’s name, he said, “ARE YOU CRAZY?” Think it through. “Opie…pee! Opie…poo!” Mr. Man had a point. We ended up calling him “Gnarley” for the first few weeks until our oldest daughter suggested we change the first couple letters. Now, Mr. Man can brag on the fact that “he got a Harley for his 50th birthday.” Harley’s full, registered name is Optimus H. Prime. It was a good compromise and the name fits him.

So, back to the little, fluffy, white dog. The kids suggested “Zeus.” I offered up “Freddie Mac” (now, there’s a scary name for you). Mr. Man, taking into consideration this puppy’s future role in the world, suggested Richard or Peter. That figures.

In the end, I shipped him off to my sister and left her with the task of naming the little guy. I haven’t heard a decision. But knowing that my brother-in-law is as colorful as Mr. Man, I wouldn’t be surprised if they named him Johnson. (Originally published: September 2008/Eagle Independent)