Awww, it's time for the babies to go. The puppies are eight weeks old now, and the first two have gone to their new homes (as of this morning). Another one is due to leave this afternoon, and the other two who will be leaving will go later this week. The owners have decided to keep Ayumi, the littlest and wildest of the puppies (girl, yellow collar).

Good luck to the babies. I hope their owners are prepared for how wonderful (and bratty) these puppies really are.

After watching the SEC championship game last night, and watching the team that had been undefeated through the regular season lose their first game and their shot at the national championship, I am fully convinced of one thing:

I HATE THE BCS.

I refuse to accept that there can be teams with undefeated records out there that will be denied the opportunity to compete for the national championship because they come from the wrong conferences.

The BCS does not identify the best teams in the country. Instead, it favors teams from certain conferences over others, convinces coaches to lead their schedules, and encourages teams to be unsportsmanlike and run up the score. The BCS conferences become convinced that their shit somehow smells better than everyone else's.

Look how many blow-outs there were this season. This isn't necessarily because some teams were "that much" better than others. It's because the BCS considers those stats in their computer analysis.

Look how many upsets there were this season. That indicates that the ratings of the AP, coaches, and BCS don't mean shit.

A perfect example of the disparity in college football is the game I attended: the University of Tennessee's homecoming game versus the University of Wyoming. Tennessee, an SEC team that has perennially been in the hunt for BCS rankings and has played for the national championship, scheduled their homecoming with non-BCS conference (Mountain West) Wyoming because they figured it would be a soft game that they could win in the midst of a difficult schedule against teams that are "better". Instead, Wyoming came in to the Vols home field and handed UT another loss. After the game, ousted head coach Phil Fulmer (who lost his job because his team could not perform to the SEC standards this year) said, "In this day and age in college football, anybody can beat you" (Knoxville News, 11/9/08).

This is pretty true, as demonstrated by the number of upsets during the course of the season. The NFL mentality of "any given Sunday" (meaning that on any given game day any team in the NFL has a reasonable chance of defeating any other team) has changed the face of college football. There are plenty of "Cinderella" teams in Division 1-A that have won the Big Game. The fact that priority is still given to some conferences over others is unfair and violates the spirit of competition in college sports.

The BCS causes a self-perpetuating cycle. By giving preference to teams in some divisions and not others, those teams get national exposure, which brings with it money from the BCS games and TV contracts. Skilled high school players opt to attend the BCS schools because it brings them more opportunities to play in big games and enhance their chances of getting scouted by the pros. Because the BCS schools can attract better players, they are more successful, which validates the BCS and starts the whole process over again.

No school from a non-BCS conference can truly get a fair shot at a national championship while the BCS exists. The only fair way to run college football is to create a playoff system to give all teams the same opportunity.

Here's my suggestion:

1) Teams need to adjust their scheduling during the regular season. There are eleven Division 1-A conferences (twelve if you include the "independent" schools). These conferences should do their schedules in a similar manner to the NFL. Each season the NFL divisions schedule three kinds of games: divisional games, conference games, and inter-conference games. Each division plays games against another division in the opposing conference. The MLB does something similar. The college teams should do something like that. Each Division 1-A team should play three kinds of games--games again conference rivals, games against other BCS conference teams, and games against non-BCS conference teams. The regular college season would probably have to be expanded to fit in the necessary games.

2) There should be a playoff between the winner of each conference. The team with the best record from each conference will have an automatic place. Now, many people will argue with this and say that a system like this will exclude some good teams. And they'll cite the game between Florida and Alabama as an example. Alabama was the number one team, and they would have been the winners of the SEC if it weren't for the SEC championship game. It's very true, that sometimes the best team isn't always the team with the best record. But to me, if you are the best team, you will end up with the best record. The way teams schedule their games now, they don't necessarily end up with a schedule that reflects their true worth. An expanded schedule may help establish the best teams a little better. This way there will be a more accurate representation, because teams will have played a wider variety of games. Also, much like the professional sports leagues, college football could also include "wild card" teams. Perhaps they can be decided in the same manner as pro sports: the team with the best records after the conference winners could get wild card births, or perhaps those who feel we should keep the rankings might suggest that the highest ranked teams outside the conference winners should get the births. I would feel better about using the records, since the expanded schedule should have better established the strongest teams.

3) The playoff will establish which teams should be playing for the national championship. This is truly the only fair way to determine these teams. The teams that make it to the first round of the playoffs will earn money, much like the bowl teams do. Then for each successive round the teams make it to, they'll continue to earn more money. The team that wins the championship will earn the most. But there should also be TV contracts with all the conferences, and each team in the conference should earn an equal share.

A playoff system will give teams from every conference an equal opportunity. The national champion could come from any conference. Every school will have the chance to recruit quality players, because they might get to play for the championship and they'll get TV exposure, just like every other team. This will make it more likely that all the teams really will end up pretty equal, and then the best team really will win the national championship.

I know this is just a pipe dream. No one involved in a BCS conference or in the BCS committees will ever agree to parity in college football. The Big 12 and the SEC will continue to think that they are all that and a bag of chips, and they will continue to get the bulk of the money, the bulk of the bowl games, and the bulk of the best players. And every season there may or may not be a "Cinderella" team that might really be better than the BCS "best".

I hate the BCS.

Well, I started out well.

I managed to hit the gym both Monday and Tuesday mornings, and also Tuesday afternoon. I was feeling pretty proud of myself (and pretty sore).

Then Wednesday morning came. When the alarm went off, I did a quick status check of all systems, and realized I was stuffy, my throat hurt, and my stomach didn't feel very good. I opted out of the morning workout, figuring I'd hit the gym on my way home from work that afternoon. However, I did not count on getting sick once I got to school that morning. After a couple trips to the bathroom before school, it became apparent that I wasn't going to make it. I ended up taking my first sick day in 6 1/2 years. Needless to say, I didn't make it to the gym. Thursday morning I also opted out, not in any hurry to reignite the illness (still stuffy and sore-throated, but not barfing). Thursday afternoon I couldn't work out because of a swim meet. That left this morning. Still snuffly, I decided against the morning workout (much to the dog's dismay). That leaves this afternoon. I do need to make the effort to get there.

The good news is that, despite the gap in the middle of the week, I've managed to lose 1 1/2 pounds between Monday and today. Of course, all the yakking I did on Wednesday probably facilitated some of that...

From Cracked.com:

The 5 Least Surprising Toy Recalls of All Time
By Danny Gallagher


As children prepare to gather around the Christmas tree to open gift-wrapped toys, lets take a moment to remember some of the toy recalls that companies, parents and even children probably should have seen coming a mile away. Because after all, children shouldn't be the only ones who can't sleep the night before Christmas.

#5. The Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids Doll

It's not entirely surprising that a Cabbage Patch Kids doll ended up trying to eat children. They've always had lifeless shark's eyes that look ready to roll over white and enter attack mode. Sure, it's outstretched arms look innocently huggable to a child, just like the moist mouth of a Venus fly trap looks like a perfectly good place to land in the final moments of a fly's life.
The doll was unleashed on the masses in the fall of 1996 and more than 500,000 were recalled less than a year later by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It was supposed to eat little plastic snack foods through a motorized mouth. Lord knows how the kids got the plastic foods out of them once they were done eating them, but in many unfortunate cases, the doll instead developed a taste for bloody scalps.

Parents reported their children's hair, fingers and skin getting caught in the doll's gullet, which turned out to be so powerful, it could even rip hair clean out of its roots. There were also more difficult to confirm reports of the doll's eyes suddenly turning a bright red and the room temperature dropping 15 degrees Celsius every time you turned it on.

The CPSC ordered a recall and Mattel offered a $40 refund. They did not offer the copy of the Necronomicon that would give parents the power to send the doll back to the bowels of hell from whence it came.

Why they should have known:
Any parent with low-lying, unprotected wall sockets or sleepy pets will tell you that children love to put their fingers into anything and everything their tiny, chubby arms can reach. It's their nature. Because they can't talk and don't have the motor skills or experience to understand pain, the best way they can learn about this weird world they've just entered is to either stick it in their mouths or shove their arms halfway down it. The Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Doll was much too big for children to swallow, and it had a motherfucking motorized mouth, so you do the math.

#4. Kinder Chocolate Eggs

Food and toys have a strong relationship. Everybody remembers the sheer joy and excitement of finding the toy surprise in their morning bowl of Lucky Charms. Kids rarely choked on those toys because the boxes had huge flashy advertisements all over them and the toy was usually the first thing they looked for when they tore open the box with their teeth and hands like a lion pouncing on a weak, marshmallow-filled antelope.

Leave it to the Germans to turn childhood joy into unrelenting horror.

Kreiner Imports of Chicago sold the Kinder Egg to stores in the South and Midwest from March to August 1997, just in time for another Christ-based holiday that finds children eating candy-filled chocolate eggs with as much thought and chewing as Pac-Man in attack mode. Unfortunately, Kreiner's chocolate eggs were actually tiny plastic toys with a delicious chocolate shell wrapped around them.

Like a Trojan horse for the Heimlich maneuver, approximately 5,000 death eggs were recalled. The toy manufacturer, the Ferrero Group, blamed the import company for the snafu, claiming that they didn't market their toys in the United States or to children ages 3 and under. These were apparently the toy-filled candy eggs for the discerning adult.

Why they should have known:
It's an edible treat wrapped around an inedible mound of plastic with even tinier bits of choke-tastic plastic encased inside. The edible treat is chocolate, the closest thing children have to heroin. The toy might have been safer on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but America's childhood obesity and early on-set diabetes rates should have been a huge red flag to the import company that Americans kids probably wouldn't even take the time to unwrap the thing before shoveling it into their mouths.

And, if there were any warnings about the surprise toy inside, not only would our children's low literacy rates prevent them from reading, but even the parents wouldn't know about it. The label encasing the egg was still written in German when it landed in America, so the product would have been about as safe if the packaging had been in English and read, "Warning: There are no small parts for your children to choke on in here. Viable substitute for baby food."

#3. Sky Dancers

Nothing can be more magical and whimsical to the eyes of the child than a toy that possesses the magic of flight. It's why kids have been making paper airplanes for years. Of course, flying toys lose a little magic when they like to leap up and knock your eye out of its socket.

Galoob unleashed Sky Dancers in November 1994. It was an unholy alliance between the pretty girlishness of a Barbie doll and the magic of a whirly bird. Children would put the helicopter toy on a mechanical base, pull the cord and watch its foam propeller pull it high into the sky. The company went on to re-release the toy several times as flying dolphins, flowers and ponies--all with different, presumably increasingly gay, names.

Six years later, Hasbro scooped up Galoob and found itself ordering a massive recall when it was learned the magic fairies would randomly fly in any direction at a high rate of speed and bitch slap children and even their parents like a white trash Tinkerbell after a bottle of lukewarm Jack Daniels.

Why they should have known:
To the untrained, uninjured eye, this toy might not seem so harmless on the surface. It's got foam propellers that look about as huggable as a propeller can look and it's too big for a toddler to stuff halfway down their esophagus. However, when activated by a pull cord, it becomes a hyper-kinetic missile searching for the vulnerable parts of anyone within a 3-foot radius. And, since it requires the kid who pulls the chord to stand within a foot of it, there's always a good chance it will be the kid bending his face directly in its whirring propellers of death who will feel the brunt of its fury.

The CSPC received over 150 reports of injuries caused by the toy, including scratched corneas, temporary blindness, broken teeth, face lacerations, a broken rib and even a mild concussion. The toy was pulled off the market before it had a chance to reenact the propeller scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

#2. The Easy Bake Oven

Like the Slinky, Uncle Milty's Ant Farm and Ohio Art's Etch-a-Sketch, the Easy Bake Oven has become a classic toy in the halls of childhood nostalgia. Every little girl or confused young boy had one growing up, or at least the ones who had parents who actually loved them. They could do just about anything a grown up oven could such as bake cakes and cookies, make fudge and brownies and prepare women for a lifetime of soul-crushing indentured servitude to a man who only cares if his meals and his women are as hot and quiet as possible.

But 44 years after Kenner toys created the Easy Bake Oven, it went from a cute childhood plaything that taught children how to give every kid on the block diabetes, to a menacing finger scorching monster.

The CSPC announced a recall in February 2007 after 29 reports of burned fingers surfaced and again this past summer when the latest incantation of the toy created by Hasbro baked up 77 incidents of burned fingers, 15 of which went as high as second- and third-degree burns. A 5-year-old girl even had to have part of her finger amputated. Just like a big girl!

Why they should have known:
Forget the fact that the Easy Bake Oven has always been dangerous because it lets children eat icing by the bag. It also lets children stick their fingers in an oven.

Hasbro proudly rolled out their new and improved version of the classic children's toy in 2006 claiming they replaced the light bulb with its own central heating system, according to Hasbro's official Easy Bake Oven timeline.

But ... doesn't it still let children stick their fingers in a fucking oven?

#1. Lawn Darts or Jarts

Lawn darts were introduced in the '60s, a more innocent time when the world did not yet realize that children could be harmed by something as innocuous as a flying metal spike.

The CSPC finally caught on in 1988, when the toys actually killed three children. They issued a recall alert that, not only called for a ban, but also ordered any remaining darts be destroyed on sight like they were bloodthirsty zombies roaming the streets in search of kids to puncture.

Then CSPC Chairwoman Ann Brown reissued the recall alert in May 1997 when one hit a 7-year-old Indiana boy in the head so hard, it pierced his skull. The fan site, Lawn-Jarts.com questions the recall and asks what the big fuss was all about. Cracked.com may not be Consumer Reports, but we have a feeling it has something to do with the dead kids.

Why they should have known:
This toy went with the strategy of taking darts, a game clearly unsafe for children, and deciding it would be safer if it were 10 times larger, and if the rules were changed so that the target was basically your entire lawn. We're assuming that exploding tip lawn darts were also considered at some point.

It's true that, as lawn dart proponents remind us, the game is perfectly safe if played according to the rules. Of course, the reality is that it takes about three minutes for kids to grow bored with the actual game and for someone to dare someone else to stand over the target and try to catch the dart in his teeth.

Let's face it, if children could be trusted to perfectly obey safety warnings, they could be trusted with flamethrowers, too. Hell, if they could read and obey safety warnings, they'd run the world because half the adults can't even do that.

I'm off to a good start. I hit the gym at 5:00 a.m. I worked on core strength for about 10-15 minutes and then did cardio for 45 minutes. If I can manage it, I'm going to try to get back there this afternoon. Monday afternoons are always crowded at the gym if you get there after most people's work hours (which I'll have to do this week since I've got to proctor study hall after school), and it'll be even worse today because everyone will feel guilty about how much they ate over the weekend. I'm sure it'll be hell, but I really need to do it. I may not be able to get on a cardio machine, but hopefully I can find some weight machines open, or I might have to swim some laps instead. Cross your fingers...

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Just wanted to post this for the heck of it...this was several months ago, at the Tellico River. This is Baby Falls, about a 12-ft waterfall.

I can't imagine there is anything more tiresome than someone who is all talk and no action. Which means I'm pretty tired of myself. Over and over again I've tried to rededicate myself to the weight loss. Again and again I've tried to refocus my efforts. Time and time again I've tried to rekindle my motivation. And each time I've failed.

Now I'm trying again. Is there anything to suggest that I'm going to succeed? Not really. I think today's Cathy really captures the essence.



In the comic strip, Cathy's mom is the one who sells her on the idea that she can eat the pie. While I've had plenty of people encouraging me to eat this past weekend, I myself am the one to blame for my sub-prime eating problem. And there is no bailout coming for me. I'm the only one who can get myself out of this mess.

Here's what I'm trying for the month of December.

1) I will work out at the gym at least five times each week until I leave for my Christmas vacation.
2) I will go to the gym at least three mornings each work week until my vacation.
3) I will try to cut back on what I eat.

That's it; no weight loss goals, no other requirements. Really what I need to do is get in better shape. On our vacation we expect to spend two days in a row skiing. If I can't get in better shape, I won't be able to make two whole days (not to mention being able to fit into my ski clothes).

Tomorrow is Day One...

Happy Veteran's Day! God bless America and our troops!

A fond farewell to another of my favorite comic strips. Opus was just the most recent face of Bloom County, one of my very favorite comics. Bloom County said "Happy Trails" (the last book) in the late '80s. It came back as Sunday-only Outland, with new characters who were gradually replaced by the old ones. It ended in the mid-'90s. Then in 2003 it showed up again as Opus, with many of the same characters. And now it's gone again, and creator Berkley Breathed claims it's for good this time, as he turns his attention to children's literature. A noble effort, to be true, but I will miss Opus, Bill the Cat, Steve Dallas, Binkley, Portnoy, HodgePodge, Cutter John, Rosebud, and all the other characters. I will put my Bloom County books on the shelf with Garfield, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes, and pray that Bill Amend continues drawing FoxTrot on Sundays for just a little bit longer.

My brother forwarded this e-mail to me. I don't know where it came from, but I sure hope it's true. If it isn't, it should be.

I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight.'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought..
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation. 'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me. 'Chicago - to Great Lakes Base - We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Iraq '.
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached Chicago, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time. As I reached for my wallet, I overheard soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch - Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks - I'll wait till we get to Chicago.' .. His friend agreed.. I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.'.. She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My son was a soldier in Iraq ; it's almost like you are doing it for him.'
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?'.. 'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked.. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class.. 'This is your thanks.'
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me.. "I saw what you did. I want to be part of it - Here, take this.".. He handed me twenty-five dollars.. Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane.. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand, an said, "I want to shake your hand.".. Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, "I was a soldier and I was a military pilot - Once, someone bought me a lunch - It was an act of kindness I never forgot.". I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.. When we landed in Chicago I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. "It will take you some time to reach the base - It will be about time for a sandwich - God Bless You."
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers. As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals.. It seemed so little...

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'

This is the greatest webcam EVER.



These are Shiba Inu puppies. Not sure how old, but probably only 3 weeks or so. Momma comes in and out, to snooze with them and feed them. Otherwise, the puppies just roll around, sleep, twitch, and pile on each other. How great is the Internet? THIS great.

I don't know what has put me in a melancholy mood. Could be the season: days getting short, weather turning chilly, some rain this week, the leaves falling. Could be my birthday this past week. I've reached that stage of life where birthdays now indicate growing older rather than becoming an adult. Could also be my mom's birthday, which was also this past week. I miss her terribly still, and the closeness of our birthdays, which was always something special we shared, was a reminder of her absence. Heck, could even be PMS.

Anyway, I've been in sort of a gloomy mood lately. Not depressed exactly, but just less than energetic and more likely to expect the bad rather than the good. Certainly nothing bad HAS happened; I've just been more of a grump recently than normal.

So, I got to thinking, as I scanned through the radio stations looking for music, about sad songs. There are plenty of them out there. I'm sure lots of them are country songs. I'm sure there are thousands of really sad songs that I've never heard. But I started thinking about the saddest songs I HAD heard, and what made them sad.

Some songs are sad purely because they deal with a sad topic. Death rarely makes for a happy time; the same goes for lost love. Some are sad because they are tragic: a bad decision, something that could and should have been prevented. Some are sad because of the back story; the song might sound a little sad just upon listening, but once you know the behind-the-scenes information they become positively heartbreaking. And of course, some songs are sad because of specific associations the listener has with them, memories connected to the music.

Once I got on the topic of sad songs, I made a list of the saddest songs I could recall listening to, and what made them sad.

Since the best part of being in a dark mood is spreading the wealth, I figured I'd list my top ten here, along with my reasoning for them. Feel free to comment and add your own contributions. I'm sure there are plenty I overlooked as I drove to work this morning.

10. Candle in the Wind '97 (Elton John)

What it's about: Elton John and his writing partner, Bernie Taupin, rewrote their original lyrics (about Marilyn Monroe) to memorialize Princess Diana after her death in a Paris car accident.

Why it's sad: Already a sad song about a life cut short, it takes a very personal look at the too-short life and tragic death of a very kind and genuinely good person (Elton John was close friends with the royal family). I remember as a little girl the mystique of Princess Di. Knowing that there were real princesses in the world was a very big deal for little girls in the '80s, and such a terrible death rocked anyone who ever believed in fairy tales.

9. The Show Must Go On (Queen)

What it's about: A performer must act a part that he certainly does not feel inside. However, he continues the role for the benefit of others.

Why it's sad: This was one of the final songs Freddie Mercury recorded with Queen. He was dying of AIDS at the time (Brian May, Queen's guitarist, wrote the song for Freddie). It is incredible to me that Mercury could have put so much power in the vocals of this song, as gravely ill as he was. I remember seeing the video for the very first time only a few days before Mercury revealed he had AIDS, and only a few days later he was gone. Again a reminder of a life cut short.

8. One Tin Soldier (Coven)

What it's about: Two groups of people, one from the valley and one from the hill, fight over a supposed treasure on the land belonging to the hill people. When the battle is over and many have died, the treasure is revealed to be the message "Peace on Earth".

Why it's sad: Irony, people, irony. The assumption that treasure must be monetary in value and that it's worth killing for is really terrible. War is supposed to suck, but there's supposed to be a better reason.

7. The Cat's in the Cradle (Harry Chapin but I like the Ugly Kid Joe version better)

What it's about: A father who is perpetually too busy to spend time with his son finds the tables turned when his son grows up and no longer has time for him or for his own family.

Why it's sad: It's real life. People constantly spend more time on material goods and their jobs than they do with their own families. The horrible realization at the end of the song by the narrator that not only has his son abandoned familial ties because he's too busy but that the narrator TAUGHT the son to be that way is crushing.

6. Concrete Angel (Martina McBride)

What it's about: A little girl is abused by family members and ends up dying because of it.

Why it's sad: First of all, just singing about a little abused girl is terribly depressing. The little girl in the song toughs it out and doesn't let outsiders know that she's been beaten--she's a "concrete angel". But the twist comes when the song describes the angel headstone resting over her grave in the cemetery, because she's died from the abuse. So now the song sings about the concrete angel forever watching over the other angel. *sniff*

5. Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)

What it's about: The singer is asking a loved one who has obviously passed on if they will recognize each other and get to be together in heaven someday. It also seems that the singer must visit heaven in his dreams but knows he cannot stay because he doesn't belong there yet. There may also be some question or concern on the part of the singer as to whether he himself deserves to even GO to heaven someday.

Why it's sad: The worry about finding loved ones in the afterlife probably concerns a lot of people. But the song is especially poignant because Clapton wrote it on the death of his four-year-old son, who fell from a window 53 stories above the ground. How Clapton can even bring himself to sing the song in concert with such personal grief is incredibly brave.

4. The War was in Color (Carbon Leaf)

What it's about: The song is an apparent conversation between a grandfather, who fought in WWII, and his grandson, who stumbled across a box of his grandfather's memorabilia. The grandson wants to know if the war was like all the old war movies he's seen on TV. The grandfather says no, the war was in color. He then very graphically describes how terrible war really is.

Why it's sad: This song has one of the cruelest plot twists ever. Near the end of the song it is revealed that this is an imaginary conversation, because the grandfather died during the war and didn't get to experience the birth of his son, the grandson's own father. So why did the grandfather fight in the war and make such a sacrifice? He says it's to give his grandson "a world without war, a life full of color". The agony here is that WWII was not the "war to end all wars", because we still have the damned things. It could be that his grandson will someday go to war as well. So his sacrifice was all for naught.

3. If You're Reading This (Tim McGraw)

What it's about: The song is a letter from a soldier being read by his family after his death in war. He wrote the letter in the event he died while overseas. He apologizes to his wife, hopes his parents are proud of him, wishes he could be there for the birth of his impending daughter, and asks that his family remember not just him but his comrades.

Why it's sad: Are you kidding? Even a very anti-war protester should be able to understand and sympathize with the final requests of a dying person. This soldier is not being selfish but instead is trying his best to help his family cope with an incredibly difficult situation. God bless our troops.

2. Kilkelly, Ireland (Peter Jones)

What it's about: Real letters kept by a family and found by a man in his attic were used to write this song. The letters are written by a father in Ireland to his son John, who came to the US during one of the many famines in Ireland. The letters keep John appraised of the struggles of his family still in Ireland. Each letter ends with a wish that John, who sounds from the gist of the letters to be far more successful in making a livelihood than his family across the sea, would come home to visit.

Why it's sad: John never went home. The final letter comes from one of John's brothers, and relates to him the death of their father. The father continually asked about John as his health grew poorer, and he called out to John as he lay dying. How dreadful. The brother's letter also ends with the same request, "Why don't you think about coming to visit? We'd all love to see you again." We never do know if John ever went back to Ireland. Agonizingly sad.

1. The Christmas Shoes (Donna VanLiere)

What it's about: The narrator is standing in line to buy last minute Christmas gifts with a large group of other flustered and short-tempered shoppers. A small boy ahead of the narrator attempts to purchase a pair of women's shoes but does not have enough money. When he is told he cannot buy the shoes he explains why he wants them: his mother is dying of an undisclosed illness. He wants the shoes to make her happy and to make her look pretty in case she goes to see Jesus. The narrator and others in line help the child buy the shoes and go home, appreciating everything and everyone they have in their lives a little more.

Why it's sad: This should not be a freakin' Christmas song. The death of a parent is awful, especially for small children who don't fully understand what is going on. Obviously, this song is very personal to me, but I had trouble listening to it even before my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Since she died, it's a definite no-no for me.

Any others I've missed? Any happy songs to get me out of my funk?

Tomorrow would have been my mom's 65th birthday. Saw this video on cuteoverload.com. I wish I would dream more often of my mom; I've only had one or two that I've remembered since she passed away.

Twilight

Not much progress on the weight issue (I was 196 today, down from about 199, but my weight fluctuates so much day to day that it's hard to count that as a for-sure drop). But there's other news...

I won my first golf game ever yesterday!

Not to say this is announcing my entrance into the LPGA tour or anything--I will not be taking Annika's place particularly soon. But this was big for me; the score was probably at least a 20 stroke improvement over my personal best. I've always used double-par as my personal par, since I've only been doing this since the end of June. That means I'm usually looking at a score in the 140's. And most of the time my 9-hole score is in the upper 50's-mid 60's. My front nine was 51; my back nine was 58 (sort of fell apart there at the end). So this 109 was totally awesome for me. The fact that I got a lower score than my husband (who usually completely destroys me when we golf) and my brother-in-law (who was on his high school golf team) was just icing on the cake.

Will I ever beat them again? Unlikely. I suspect the planets aligned or something for me to play as well as I did.

I guess I need a new personal par. It will probably depend on the course I'm playing (the one yesterday was pretty short, which is good for me because I can't drive very far). Maybe 18 under double par?

So.

It's been a while since I posted anything particularly meaningful. Basically because nothing really has happened. Have I moved to a new and interesting location? No. Have I hit any new rivers lately? Nope. Did I accomplish any of my goals for the summer? Not really. Have I lost any weight in the past two years? NO.

I don't understand what happened. Almost three years ago, in November 2005, my husband and I decided to work out and lose weight. We ate a bit better, worked out a lot, and we each lost about 40 pounds in about six months. Of course, the more weight we lost, the harder it got to lose more. Our bodies adjusted to the work outs and the diet, so we had to step it up in order to keep losing.

But instead of stepping it up, we went the other way. We started going out to eat more. We started going back for seconds (and thirds) at mealtimes. We got bored with going to the gym all the time. We cut back on the work outs and the intensity, and some weeks we didn't go to the gym at all.

And the weight came back. Thankfully, not all of it; I'm not sure what my husband gained back, but I'm back up about 25 pounds from the lightest I had gotten on this plan (still down almost 20, hallelujah). With the weight came all the crappy stuff that I wanted to get rid of. I'm tired all the time. My back hurts. My plantar fasciitis, which had gotten a lot better, got worse again. I'm cranky all the time. I don't feel well. My clothes don't fit.

And it's that much harder to get started again. The gym is still uninteresting. I haven't found a suitable replacement--I can't make myself run (tried that this summer, failed), I don't force myself to swim hard enough for it to benefit me, I'm afraid to ride my bike anywhere because I don't want to get run over...I've got an excuse for everything.

Plus, with work and swimming (yes, it's that time of year again) and some of the other commitments I have, there is so little time for me to spend with my husband that it is a shame to spend it sweating away at the gym when we could be out somewhere enjoying each other's company.

So I'm trying to reach deep inside me somewhere and find the strength, willpower, and motivation I need to get my ass off the couch every day and lose this weight. If I can't do it now, I may never get it off.

Stay tuned...

Still fuming about the end to the Chargers/Broncos game last night. Yes, I know, mistakes happen, and yes, I know, calls get blown all the time. But when not one but TWO calls go horribly awry in the same game, against the same team, you start to feel as though the refs have a personal vendetta against your team. I remember back to my college days. The refs in the old Western Athletic Conference were notoriously TERRIBLE. We had regular chants for such occasions, such as "THE REF BEATS HIS WIFE! THE REF BEATS HIS WIFE!" and "WHEN I GET OLD AND CANNOT SEE, I WANT TO BE A REFEREE!" and of course the classic "ZEBRA ZEBRA, SHORT AND STOUT, FIND YOUR HEAD AND PULL IT OUT!" which I still employ at hockey games. Heck, I even remember one game where the calls were so bad the refs had to be rescued by football players from a barrage of snowballs coming from the stands. We had deadly aim back then. What I wouldn't have given for a long-distance snowball last night to peg Ed Hochuli in the back of the head for blowing his damn whistle early.

I drove past a fire station today. Spread out on the grass in front of the building were three hundred and forty-three American flags. Big letters amidst the flags read FDNY.

Tears flowed as I drove on. It's been seven years, and as a country we are still frightened, heartsick, and angry. And so very, very proud. Most of us do not know the names of the firemen, the police officers, the first responders who lost their lives at Ground Zero. We have not memorized the names of the dead at the World Trade Center or Pentagon. We can't recite the names of the heroes who fought and died on United Airlines Flight 93.

And yet their names are written forever in our hearts.

God bless America, land that I love.

Amen.

Here I am. One full week left of my summer, and practically nothing to show for it. At the beginning of May I was rededicating myself to my weight loss attempt, figuring a full fifteen weeks before school started up for the fall would give me ample time to lose 15, 20, maybe 30 or more pounds! What a great idea!

And then the wheels fell off. I did not get myself to the gym as I should have. I did not get up and go jogging as I should have. I did not go rollerblading as I should have. I did not go biking as I should have. I did not take the dog to the park as I should have. I did not eat appropriately as I should have. I did not clean my house as I should have. I did not overhaul my lesson plans for the school year as I should have.

As a matter of fact, as I pointed out last time, the only thing I DID accomplish was to pick up a new sport (golf).

Pretty feeble. I did manage to make some money with my workout schedule, but there's no reason to spend it, because I haven't lost any weight so I don't need to buy new clothes.

So, here I am. I have one week left of summer. I need to do some work around the house, cleaning things up. I need to weed items out of my closet that don't fit (but hopefully will at some point before Christmas). I need to go over my school stuff to see what needs to be changed. I'm going out of town for a long weekend (early anniversary celebration), and then it's back to the grind. Hopefully I can make a start on the weight loss again. I'd hate to be stuck like this forever. I'm running out of rededications.

While I am not surprised by how most of my summer has transpired (like, the fact that I haven't gotten ANYTHING on my to-do list done, and I only have two weeks left), I am absolutely shocked by one occurrence, something I could never in my entire life have predicted:

I've taken up golf.

My entire adult life, I have subscribed to the opinion of the late George Carlin:

"Did you ever watch golf on TV? It's like watching flies fuck. I get more excited picking out socks. Think of the brains that it takes to play golf: hitting a ball with a crooked stick, and then...walking after it. And then, hitting it again! I say, 'Pick it up, asshole, you're lucky you found it. Put it in your pocket and go the fuck home, will ya?'"

I've had little contact with golf of the non-miniature variety during my life. My dad played occasionally when I was a kid. He owned his own clubs, but it wasn't a particularly frequent pasttime; I really can't remember any specific golf outings of his, or what caliber player he was. In fact, my only specific memory was when I was about seven or eight and my father decided to teach my brother and me to play.

Now, I suspect the plan was really to teach my brother the finer points of the game, as he is 3 1/2 years older than I am, but I tended to tag along when my brother wanted to do things, so I was probably included more to prevent hurt feelings and temper tantrums than for my edification.

Anyway, Dad was teaching us how to swing the clubs. The next event is shouded in mystery, and the truth may never be fully clear, but ultimately the result was my solid thwacking of my brother's head with an iron. Many questions have been asked about the intent of said thwacking: was my brother a victim of an accidental backswing or follow-through, or were there darker forces at work? I don't take well to criticism, so it's possible that assistance or critiques being offered were not taken in a positive light by me. In any case, my illustrious golfing career was over. The clubs were taken away, and suggestions were made that perhaps golf was not in my future.

And golf never entered my mind again, at least not for about 20 years. Meanwhile, my dad continued to play occasionally (probably not more than once or twice per year), and somewhere along the line my brother picked up enough of the game to get his own set of clubs and hit the driving range at lunchtimes or the links on a Saturday with some of his buddies. As for me, I did not play, I did not consider playing, and except for the sports highlights on the nightly news I did not see golf at all.

Then, in 2005, my brother-in-law graduated from high school. A member of his high school's golf team, he expressed an interest in hitting the local golf course with his siblings as a graduation gift. My husband agreed, having golfed a few times growing up and having enjoyed it, and so my husband, his brother, their sister, and her husband set off for the course. I tagged along out of curiosity, having never watched anyone actually play the sport live. The first few holes I enjoyed watching everyone else (my brother-in-law of course is quite good; everyone else had a few good shots but more unpredictable than not), but then once we were out of sight of the clubhouse, my sister-in-law offered me the use of her clubs and let me play along on a few holes. I thought perhaps this might be the moment where I discovered my true talent, my natural ability. I've never felt naturally gifted at anything, really, so I thought maybe I was a hidden gem, a Tigress just waiting to be discovered.

Alas, I really wasn't. I doubt that I hit the ball more than once correctly. My skills were more suited to the putt-putt courses than the full-sized game. Oh well. When we made the turn back towards the clubhouse, I relinquished the clubs to my sister-in-law and returned to my position as spectator. I had fun, but felt no real draw to the sport. I had tried it, I had failed, and I was moving on.

However, golf did not go away. My husband expressed several times how much fun he had playing with his little brother. The opportunity presented itself a few more times here and there, and he enjoyed himself. Several of his friends in town play golf, some pretty good actually, and he thought that it might be fun to learn to play so he could golf with them. And he suggested I might learn to play too--neither of us would be likely to take it seriously, but it would be something to do together, and a form of exercise that might be more interesting than cruising on an elliptical machine at the gym. His grandfather gave him an old set of clubs he had used when he retired (old enough that, as my husband laughs, "The woods are really wood"). The clubs sat in our house, unused, but occasionally the topic would be brought up again.

Nothing actually happened until June of this year. My husband's cousin was getting married at a golf resort, and the guests were offered the opportunity to play a round the day of the wedding. My brother-in-law of course expressed an interest, as did my sister-in-law and her husband, and my mother-in-law. My husband decided he would play too, and looked expectantly at me. What the heck, I thought, it would just be family, no one played regularly, my brother-in-law would surely smoke us all and we'd have a good time doing it.

But I had a problem: no clubs. My husband had his aged set, some family members had their own they would bring and others had sets they could borrow. I had neither my own clubs nor any friends who golf. I was uncomfortable asking my husband to borrow clubs from any of his coworkers' or friends' wives (and to be truthful it seems few of the women golfed--I don't know if we'd have found a set in time).

So a discussion with my husband ensued. Was it possible we might be interested in taking up the sport, not seriously of course, but as a fun option on weekends when rivers weren't running? Would we play enough to make a purchase of clubs worthwhile? Would this be a sport we might actually do more than once or twice a summer?

We answered "Yes", and purchased a set of woman's clubs (driver, two woods, two hybrids, four irons, two wedges, putter, bag, head covers) on sale at Sports Authority for $150. I was appalled at this outlay of money for a sport that I really, honestly, had not shown any promise at (I'm not even a par golfer on the putt-putt course), but after looking at the prices of the mid-range and upper quality clubs, I was pretty sure we'd just gotten the deal of a lifetime.

After only enough time to hit the driving range once and play a short nine holes on our little municipal course, we drove to the wedding. The morning of the wedding we showed up at the pro shop at a little after 7 a.m. It hadn't really occured to me that only four people could play golf at a time, so we were separated from my brother- and mother-in-law. Our foursome consisted of me, my husband, my sister-in-law and her husband. This suited us pretty well; while we would have liked to have the whole family together, who really wants to get shown up by a 21-year-old kid? I was fine with the group, since no one had significantly more experience than I did, in the grand scheme of things.

Two things became apparent on the first hole: 1) we were reasonably well matched as a foursome, skill-wise, and 2) this was not going to be a quick game before lunch. We were informed by a course ranger that a maximum score of 10 strokes was all that was permitted for each hole (what this meant was if you hit the ball ten times and still weren't in the hole, move on; what we interpreted this as was we might hit the ball thirteen times but we're only going to write down 10 on the scorecard). After being driven off the course after the first hole by a thunderstorm (generally holding a metal stick in a field when there's lightning is not on the recommended list of healthy activities) we resumed play. While I did not possess the golfing experience that my family members did, none of us possessed any consistency: one hole might find us on the green in two, only to six-putt; the next hole might require four tee-shots before we got one that was remotely playable; and a third hole might result in five lost balls before we ever got to the green. And yet, every few holes, each of us would hit a real golf shot, one that went where it was supposed to go. Those shots spurred us on (despite course rangers harassing us for being so slow), and we finished the eighteen holes (in 5 1/2 hours, a full hour beyond the course's maximum pace).

When the scores were totalled, I was shocked, stunned, and rather absurdly pleased with myself to find that I did not come in last in our foursome. My husband was equally pleased to learn that he had the best score of the four of us. This success, we decided, and the fun we had doing it, was just what we needed to verify that our decision had been correct. The Rubicon had been crossed, so to speak; we were taking up golfing.

However, we both agreed that our hack-and-slice approach probably wouldn't make us happy for long, so we decided to seek professional help. We arranged a lesson with a local golf pro, who took us one evening to the back end of the driving range at our municipal course. We were both disappointed to learn that we would be starting off with the short irons (part of the glee in golf, especially for my husband, is unleashing a wicked drive off the tee), basically because they are the easiest to control. The pro had us each hit a few balls while he evaluated our swings.

Then he started giving advice. He helped with the grip, the positioning of the shoulders and feet, where to put the head, and a number of other tips. Then he told me to swing again. Suddenly, it was like everything clicked into place, as my husband put it. Pow! I hit the ball with my pitching wedge, and it traveled easily just as far as the farthest I had ever managed to hit it with my driver (yes, sadly, that was only about 50-75 yards). I swung it again. Pow! And again. Pow! This was fantastic!

[On a side note, I actually hit the ball better than my husband did that day. His swing difficulties, however, were largely attributable to the fact that his clubs were old, battered, and far too short for his 6'4" frame. A new set of clubs, specially lengthened, have solved many of his problems. But I enjoyed the superiority while it lasted.]

Wanting to show off our new abilities, we scheduled a golf round with a kayaking friend of ours. He claimed to be a poor golfer (which he may be, but he still beat us). We had a great time, but there were still many inconsistencies in our game. My biggest problem seemed to be my longer clubs--our coach had taught us to swing the short irons, and I couldn't seem to translate that great-feeling swing to my driver or woods. Also, my putting, once the strongest (ha ha) part of my game (all that mini-golf), seemed to fall apart. We needed another lesson.

Our second lesson came, and despite our pro's plan to work on lower numbered irons (or, in my case, my hybrids), we asked him if he would teach us to hit the drivers. He acquiesced, and we started hitting. Again, with just a few tips here and there, my swing was back. Pow! Pow! Pow! (I've decided that the best course of action may be for me to record his advice and play it in headphones while I play the course.)

We played another round of golf with our friend this past weekend, and he was dismayed to see our improvement (I actually parred two holes, and my husband was only four strokes behind our friend at the end of 18). We're still wildly inconsistent, but so are the other people we've played with. Our friend has been playing since he was a kid; we've been playing for a month.

We have another lesson on Wednesday. I think we're going to ask if we can work on chipping and putting, as those have been weak spots for both of us.

So far I have resisted the urge to start replacing all my clubs with fancier ones (although I must admit, I have replaced the putter that came with my set with a novelty putter in the shape of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, and yes, I know that makes me a complete geek), but I'm sure the time will come. Already the shiny, high tech sticks are singing a siren call every time I enter a sporting goods store. I will only resist for so long. Perhaps instead of new clubs, we need a new house, with more storage space for all the expensive gear we seem to accumulate through our many hobbies (kayaking, skiing, hockey, mountain biking, Magic: the Gathering, reading, four video game consoles, five computers, and now golf). Anyone know a realtor? We can take them golfing and discuss our options...

Strange things happen at a school during the summer months. Teachers get hired and fired, or decide to retire, or move away. Floors get waxed, walls and handrails get painted, items get repaired or mysteriously broken. Whole classrooms full of furniture wander away and turn up in unlikely places. Bookshelves get rearranged. Supplies get ordered, delivered, and distributed, often to the wrong places. Students and teachers who cannot stay away roam the halls. New students are enrolled. Technology is upgraded. Major decisions are made.

In the midst of all this, I have to teach summer school to about twenty incoming freshmen. This is an English class designed to give a boost to students who didn't perform as well as our admissions office would have liked on the entrance exam. We spend most of our time on grammar, with a little discussion of reading techniques and study tips. It isn't anything drastic--just making the poor kids show up for fifteen hours in the middle of July is drastic enough.

But the chaos that surrounds such a simple class is remarkable. The students show up late and unprepared, and don't know where to go or what to do. Since there is little communication between groups of administrators, teachers, and support staff during the school year, let alone summer, no one knows anything about the class, not even me. I didn't get a roster. I showed up (early, thank goodness), to find that the classroom I've taught in for six years was utterly devoid of furniture. Partway through my copying of handouts for the students, someone (maintenance) came along and unplugged the copy machine, dragging it out of the faculty workroom and into the hallway. The second day of the class, today, I came in to find that someone (IT) had come in and taken the LCD projector I had been using off the rolling cart and mounted it to the ceiling. Great, except I can't find a remote for it so I have to stand on the furniture today to turn it off and on. Goodness knows if I will come in to find the furniture in this room gone as well.

Anyway, summer school is an adventure, and the only thing one can hope for, student or teacher, is survival. Four days left...

Went and saw Disney's WALL-E last night. I wanted to see it because I'm a huge Disney fan, and I love all the Disney/Pixar collaborations. But I was also curious because I had read about some controversy surrounding the movie.

What I had read on CNN.com were some comments by parents saying that their children were frightened and upset by some of the images in WALL-E, specifically images of the Earth that WALL-E lives on and of the people on the cruise-spaceship that left Earth over 700 years earlier.

This is an Earth of the future, and we haven't done very well, apparently. The opening shots of the movie pan mountains of garbage, taller than skyscrapers. Poking out of some of the garbage heaps are windmills, almost as if Pixar is mocking our 21st century attempts at cleaning and greening our planet. Right? Anyway, WALL-E is the last lonely garbage-crushing robot left on the planet, rolling around in the dust with just a little cockroach as a buddy, watching a videotape of Hello Dolly and wistfully wishing he could hold hands with someone (forget about the scores of other now-defunct WALL-E robots all over the place that he probably could have fixed since he had scavenged so many spare parts to keep his own bod running). The horror that these parents on this CNN blog claim their children feel comes from the destroyed Earth. Hmm.

The next images that are apparently stressful for kids are those of the humans on the giant space cruiser Axiom. The Axiom was built for a five-year cruise of the galaxy while the little WALL-Es cleaned up the Earth enough to make it hospitable again. Essentially a cruise ship similar to what you would find in the fleets of Norwegian or Carnival cruise lines, the Axiom made everything available to people--shopping, activities, TV and Internet, etc.--and went it one better: no one had to walk anywhere if they didn't want to, because specially designed lounge chairs could cart them anywhere on the ship they wanted to go. As the years passed on the ship, people chose to be less and less active, using the lounge chairs more and more, and gradually became self-absorbed, morbidly obese, stubby legged slugs floating around the ship not taking in the scenery because they were too plugged-in to their video screens. While these body changes are attributed to the "affects of microgravity" in the movie, it's pretty obvious that these people need to get off their fat butts and get some exercise, much like many of the people in the US today (myself included). I don't know why this would be upsetting to little kids, especially since many of them were probably sitting in the movie theatre eating out of their huge tub o'popcorn and sucking down a monster soda after sitting inside and playing video games all day.

Anyway, some people are bothered by the images, and feel that Disney/Pixar have taken the opportunity to get PREACHY about social issues, and they are bothered by this frightening depiction of the future Earth. "Let a kids' movie be a kids' movie, full of bright colors and harmless images," these parents say. "Let's not heap despair and social anxieties on them at this young age. It's too frightening."

Who ARE these people? And why are they complaining about these images, which seem pretty tame compared to some of the things kids' movies have dished out over the years. Anyone else upset by the nasty car accident that happened to The King in Cars? That was pretty realistic. And the villainous Syndrome getting sucked into a jet engine in The Incredibles? Pretty gruesome. Any little kids frightened by the great white shark in Finding Nemo when he snapped and tried to eat Dory and Marlin? Heck, I was a little disturbed. What about A Bug's Life when the grasshoppers show up to claim the ants' hard-earned food (with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss whispering "they come, they eat, they leave...they come, they eat, they leave..." over and over)? Eek. Heck, go back to the first Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story, and watch the scene where the toys scare Sid into treating his toys with more respect (come on: Woody's head turning a full 360 in a Linda Blaire-esque moment?). Terrifying. And those are just recent movies; look at the old Disney flicks--Bambi's mom being shot, Maleficent's transformation into the dragon in Sleeping Beauty, the wicked witch plunging over the cliff at the end of Snow White. After some of those, a brown, dusty Earth doesn't seem so bad. And some pudgy people? Gimme a break.

I think these PARENTS are more disturbed by the images in WALL-E because they hit a little too close to home. Yes, maybe Disney is trying to make a point or two about cleaning up the environment and reversing America's trend towards obesity. Does this mean Disney and Pixar are being PREACHY? So, what if they are? Is it a bad thing? Are these messages any different than a mother's basic two instructions to her children: 1) Clean up that mess you made; and 2) It's a nice day outside, why don't you go out and play instead of sitting in front of the TV?

I see nothing wrong with these messages. If WALL-E convinces a little kid that he or she needs to help encourage the family to recycle, good. If a little kid is so distressed by the images of fat people on lounge chairs that it makes him or her go outside and run around, hooray! All kids' movies have messages--be kind to others, be true to yourself, someday your prince will come--and I see nothing negative about these.

If your child is old enough and smart enough to pick up on Disney's "hidden agenda", good for you and them. If not, your kid will just be wowed by the robots and the cute story. Big deal.

Now, if your kid picks up on the more subtle messages (the huge "Buy N Large" corporation that apparently runs the Earth--can you say Walmart? The smarmy Buy N Large CEO who sends a message to the Axiom that they can never return to Earth and should "Stay the course"--picking on the Bush administration, are we?), we'll talk. Otherwise, clean up after yourselves, and go outside and play, because it's a beautiful day out there.

I thought it was a darn cute movie.

R.I.P. George Carlin
1937-2008


And the world is a less funny place.

Boy, just a reminder of how progress can be undone by just one indiscretion. It was looking to be a good week. I had a pretty surprising nearly two-pound drop on the last day of the week, which seemed like nothing but good news going into this morning's weigh-in. However, I probably should have questioned why I had such a large weight drop on a day that I didn't do anything particularly special (I did play boatball, a kind of waterpolo in kayaks, for about an hour and a half, which really wasn't enough to justify a loss that big); it probably meant that I was perhaps dehydrated and had some water loss. Anyway, maybe if I'd worked really hard yesterday I might have kept the loss for my weekly weigh-in this morning and gotten some cash out of it. Instead, we went to the local Chinese buffet for dinner last night. Chinese, along with Mexican, seems to be the absolute WORST thing that I can possibly eat when it comes to my weight. Even pizza and pasta don't have the effect that Chinese and Mexican seem to. I think it is the high salt content of the foods--I suspect I retain quite a bit of water when I consume them. Plus, the Chinese buffet is just an open invitation to eat way too much anyway. And the sauces, while being salty, are also high in sugar, which certainly doesn't help. So the ultimate result of the week, instead of being an almost two-pound drop, was a .2 pound GAIN. I gained two entire pounds in one night. Now, whether that was just because of the water or if I actually DID manage to lose and then gain two pounds in just two days' time, I don't know. But it sure turned what looked like a good week into a major disappointment.

We went camping this past weekend in a national forest service park campground. The first few nights were pretty quiet--the campground was mostly empty; obviously the gas prices are pretty prohibitive for a lot of people. But the last night people started to roll in, and by the middle of the night (like, 2 a.m.), the campground had filled up. And I developed some rules for staying in a public campground:

1. If you are going to come in really late (like, after midnight), consider changing your travel plans and possibly staying in a motel the first night. It's pretty much impossible to set up camp quietly.

2. If your dog barks at other dogs, unfamiliar people, strange noises, birds, trees, leaves, dirt, etc., leave the poor thing at home. You won't have to shush it the whole time and your camp neighbors will thank you.

3. If you are musically inclined, have a large stereo, or are a hippie, think twice about serenading your fellow campers. Despite your talents, you may be surprised to learn that not all your neighbors really want to hear your version of "Brown-Eyed Girl".

4. While some small children enjoy camping, you may consider the impact they'll have on the campground before taking the family on that trip. Do your children have any kind of volume control? Are they likely to barrel through other campsites while trying to catch fireflies? Do they like to poke their heads under the doors of restroom stalls even in the filthiest campground conditions? Take the kids to a motel and go to Disney Land instead. At least in a motel there are walls between your children and your neighbors. In a campground, all your neighbors have for protection is their nylon tent. Save the camping trip for when they have a little more self-control.

5. Don't be an early riser. Even if you normally get up at 5:30 a.m., try to sleep in. If you simply can't sleep any longer, bring a book to read, and don't start shuffling around your campsite until your neighbors begin to stir. If you absolutely need to get up early because you have a schedule to keep, pack up what needs to be packed the night before, so you don't make as much noise in the morning.

6. Conversely, don't be a night-owl either. Your lantern lights up the whole campground, and even the flickering flame of your campfire can be a distraction to neighbors trying to get some sleep. If you think you and your friends are whispering, you aren't.

I'm sure there are more rules that I will think of later, but take these to heart if you are planning a camping trip soon...

Just a quick "Yay me!" because I've got a lot to do in the next few hours--we're going camping. My last post was one of frustration and disappointment because I've had some backsliding lately. But this week has been quite the turn-around. I made my best workout record so far--five days, and three of them multiple-workout days. And, I ate pretty well for the week, which made for the ultimate combination of a 4+ pound weight loss for the week! Yay! I must have been a real slug the past few weeks to have such a good weight loss this week and such horrible gains/non-losses the previous weeks.

But now for one of my tests--we're leaving for a camping trip this afternoon, and as I've mentioned before, camping seems to bring out the worst in my eating, regardless of how much physical activity I get. So we'll see if I can duplicate my success. We'll find out Monday morning...

Well, I'm a bit disappointed in myself. I've now had two straight weeks of backsliding, after three solid weeks of weight loss. I've gained back half of the 6 pounds I had dropped. I'm definitely frustrated, because this past week was much better about working out than the previous two had been. I think the biggest obstacle to my weight loss is not really the exercise at all, but the eating. I'm still not good about my portion control, and staying at home for most of the day I find myself grazing all day long. I've tried chewing gum when I get the urge to snack, but all that's done is burn through one of those "big pack" containers of gum in a week and give me a raging headache. I still find myself rummaging through the cabinets. I can't decide which is worse: having snacks in the house to eat, or not having any at all, which causes me to pull out and make things that aren't really snacks and end up eating too much.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what to do about the snacking thing. I try to get out of the house, but the Southern summer with it's 90+ degree and 95+ humidity doesn't make that much fun. And of course forget the driving with gas being what it is right now. My husband is driving the more efficient vehicle to work now, since I really don't have many long-distance errands to run, which leaves me with the gas-guzzling pickup. I want to be as green as I can be, which means leaving the truck in the driveway. Maybe I've got a little cabin fever in the middle of the summer, I don't know.

So, I have a few things to work on. Portion control and snacking. I'm five weeks down in my fifteen-week summer experiment, and I haven't even managed a pound a week. Need to buckle down, or I won't have much of a shopping spree at the end of the summer (and I won't need one because all the "fat" clothes will still fit).

The first couple of weeks, I actually did pretty well with my eating and working out. I managed to drop a few pounds, and even weighed in under 190. Then, I hit the last week of school. I had lots of grading to do, with research papers and exams. I was up late grading and up again early, but not to work out. I didn't work out before school because I was grading until it was time to go to school. In the afternoons I stayed at school as long as I could to grade, then came home. We had company all week, so it meant no working out at night, because they'd been at home all day long while we were at work. It also meant food. We cooked big meals at home and went out a few times too.

Then the weekend came. We did our annual family camping trip. While there was exercise involved (two days of flat-water paddling plus lots of running around the campground with my nieces), there was also food. Or more appropriately, FOOD. Something about the great outdoors makes you want to eat. Food tastes really good in the outdoors. And, you've worked up an appetite from all the activities. Finally, add in the fact that there is nowhere to put leftovers, so you hear the family battle cry of "Finish it up" after you've already had two servings. And of course, the food is the good, hot, hearty kind, with lots of meat, cheese, potatoes, bacon, creamy sauces...OK, now I'm hungry again.

Then last week I spent all my time either in meetings for the end of the school year or packing up my classroom, as well as going out to eat with coworkers. I just didn't feel like working out. Bad, I know.

So it all boils down to a slight weight gain. I'm still down overall from my initial weigh-in, but I'm back at 191 after SWEARING that my weigh-in at 189 would be the breakthrough I was looking for. Meh.

The GOOD thing now, though, is that I've officially started my summer, and I'm really going to try incorporating some things that I haven't done in a while. I'm going to try to run around the neighborhood a few mornings a week, and swim at the gym the other mornings (minimizing driving and gas and all that crap). Maybe once or twice a week I'll take my skates or boat or dog up to the big nature park in Memphis. I'm also going to try using my mountain bike to run whatever errands (small shopping trips etc) in town, and not drive up to Southaven so often. This whole gas thing is ridiculous anyway.

So hopefully with the exercise and some better eating, I may be able to get back on track. We'll see.

Interesting. I hadn't given an update since I started my "new" weight loss plan that involves self-bribery. I am apparently extrinsically motivated. Who knew?

I started on May 1 with a weight of 195.6 (the weight I seem to have been stuck at for months and months now). I did much better about my eating for the week, while doing so-so at the working out (I did manage at least a brief workout five of the seven days that week). Lo and behold: one week later (May 8) my weight was 193. A 2.6 lb drop earned me (at $3 per lb) $7.80. The working out is what really adds up; five days of working out (only one of which was a two-workout day, sadly) earned me another $16, for a total for the week of $23.80. Whatever money I earn for myself I will just set aside for what I hope will be a killer shopping spree for all new clothes when school starts in August.

Anyway, this week hasn't been quite so stellar, although I still have a few days left. We've done more eating out than we should, and my weigh-ins have really fluctuated, with a high one morning of 194.2 and a low a two mornings later of 191.6. This morning it was 192.2. That still gives me a net loss for the week. Hopefully I can shed a little more between now and Thursday. The problem this week has been work--I've been grading rough drafts of research papers, and they've been...well...rough. I'll fully admit: I didn't spend nearly enough time working on the paper with this group of freshmen, and they aren't self-motivated enough to look up some of this stuff themselves. Of course, they should already know it; there's no reason any kid should make it to 9th grade without having had some exposure to research methods, notetaking, outlining, and citing sources. This may make the final papers, which get turned in later this week, pretty sketchy. We'll see. Anyway, the rough drafts have gone slowly enough that I've been getting up early in the morning and using my workout time to grade papers, and I'm still not done. I'll have to get the last ones done today for sure, because I need to hand them back to the girls this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.

So, the weight loss is progressing, although oh so slowly. Hopefully I can drop a little more this week to sweeten the $.

In a sporting world full of jackass superstars, overpaid prima donnas, and thugs constantly getting arrested, it's nice to see a really inspiring act of sportsmanship.

A softball player at Western Oregon University hit a home run with two runners on base in a game against Central Washington University. However, her joy turned to anguish when she blew out her knee rounding first. Suddenly, a really bizarre ruling came to light. If any of her teammates tried to assist her in traveling the bases, she would be called out, and if her coach subbed in a pinch runner, the hit would only count as a single. The poor girl couldn't make the bases on her own. So, what to do?

The Central Washington players didn't hesitate. Two of the girls approached the batter, asked which leg was hurt, and carefully carried her between them around the bases, stopping at each base for her to touch with her foot to make the run count. They said afterwards they weren't thinking about winning or losing the game, only that the girl on the other team had hit a home run and deserved to have it count.

Why can't we have more athletes like this?

OK, so, apparently I don't understand weight loss at all. Yesterday morning's weigh-in after a night of meat debauchery: 195.6 lbs. This morning's weigh-in, after eating reasonably well yesterday AND working out for over an hour: 197.0 lbs. WTF? Not fair. I know, I know, today's weigh-in probably more accurately represents the feeding frenzy from two nights ago, but still. Not fair at all. It's only my second day of the experiment and I'm already in negative numbers, but not the negative numbers I'm supposed to be seeing. Dang it. And I couldn't run this morning because I apparently pulled a hamstring in my excitement yesterday morning, so I had to rely on sit-ups and push-ups, which probably won't help much. Crud.

So, it's the first day of May. I find myself weighing the same as I did the first day (I weighed myself, the 4th) of April: 195.6 lbs. Eek. Actually, I had expected worse; we ate at Texas de Brazil last night, and as I've described before it's somewhat of a meat orgy. So it could have been worse, but still. Obviously, I've made utterly no progress at all in the past few weeks. So I'm trying to regroup (again, I know, it's getting a little silly) and try to figure out a way to motivate myself.

Here's my thinking: from today, there are fifteen weeks until school starts (oh, the horror; there's nothing worse to think about for a teacher who isn't even out of school yet than the fact that school starts in a few months) for the next school year. Here's my idea. Apparently just cheering myself on to lose weight isn't nearly enough to get me going. Maybe I can bribe myself. I've got two separate plans.

Plan one has to do with the actual weight loss. Each pound I lose will be worth some dollar amount ($3 is what I'm thinking of so far; $1 seems too small and $5 seems a bit much, at least it did when I first started thinking about this, but maybe $5 might be more motivation!). The money I accumulate over the summer will go towards buy the new clothes that I'll hopefully need for next school year.

Plan two has to do with the exercise. Each day I workout will also be worth money. The first day is worth only $1, the second day $2, the third $3, and so on. If I were to work out for seven days in a row, it would be worth $28 (and maybe I might reward myself by rounding it up to $30). I might even consider adding a dollar to each day that I work out twice. I don't know; I haven't ironed out all the details.

Now, I haven't quite decided what to do about any possible weight GAIN I might run across. Maybe if I end a week with a weight gain, obviously I wouldn't get any money from the weight loss, but I could possibly penalize myself by removing half the money I earned from working out. Hmm.

Ultimately any money I get from all this would go towards the clothes shopping I will hopefully need to do at the end of the summer to prepare for the start of the new school year.

Any suggestions as to how I can fine tune this plan? The good news is I've started out well; I managed to run this morning, despite every urge to the contrary.

You'd think with my super-reliable alarm clock there would be no question of my getting up at 4:00 a.m. to run, right? I have a pretty determined, furry, 23 lb alarm clock who does not like schedule changes. If I get up once at 4:00 a.m., he's pretty sure I should get up all the time at 4:00 a.m. Even if I turn off my regular, electrically-powered alarm clock, the fuzzy black one will be at the side of the bed within just a few minutes, with his beady little eyes glaring reproachfully. He wants OUT. Even though he pottied only seven hours ago (and this is the dog who got stuck in the house once for a day and a half WITHOUT having an accident), it is time for his morning constitutional, and he will not be denied.

Oh, I try to deny him, certainly. I tell him to shush. He continues to rustle around. I tell him to shush again. He scratches at the bedroom door (and no, we can't let him have the run of the house all night because his toenails on the hardwood floor drive us crazy, and if you're thinking we should crate him, well, you don't know much about the vocalizations of Shiba Inus). I shush him again, and he jumps on the bed and starts rolling around, kicking and biting at the blankets. Out of sheer kindness to my husband, I finally get up and take the dog out before he wakes up too.

Usually by the time I've shushed the dog as many times as I can, I've killed between 30-45 minutes. At that point, it's close enough to the "other" time I have to get up that I go ahead and get up for good.

The dog is both persistent and consistent. This battle rages every single morning, weekdays, weekends, and holidays. With such an irresistible force, you'd think I'd be lean and mean from all my morning workouts. Nope. Despite my demoniacal conscience, my Jiminy Cricket from hell, I haven't been running nearly as much in the mornings as I should. The most mornings I've done in a week has been three. I think I only ran once last week. Not good. If I can't get into a routine with my running in the morning by the end of May, I may have to give up and go back to mornings at the gym. Meh.

I didn't mention in my last post that we had just arrived home from a kayaking trip. If you read the previous post, you know I have been struggling with a crisis of confidence of late. This kayaking trip was an attempt to regain some of the joy and ease I used to feel on the river.

We went for a three-day weekend to the Nantahala River in North Carolina. The Nanty is a mostly class II river, meaning it's not really a river for true beginners but it isn't particularly difficult either. We spent two days on the river, and the trip was...good. I didn't leap for joy after I got off the river and shout, "I'M BACK!" but I had fun, which I haven't really had for the past few trips. The first day I was particularly tentative, pretty much just floating the river with a few minor course corrections. I felt uncomfortable in my boat and had to get out a few times to stretch. Part of it was certainly the weight issues I've been struggling with--I'm about ten pounds above the recommended upper range for the boat I've been using. But I'm sure a lot of it was simply tenseness on my part. I did loosen up throughout the day, enough to be willing to run the class III "Nantahala Falls" rapid at the end of the river. It wasn't the best run I've ever made, and I flipped at the bottom of the rapid. My husband afterwards admitted that he firmly believed I needed to flip (and of course hit my roll). Well, he got his wish. However, it wasn't the instinctive roll that I've had in the past. When a kayaker is completely comfortable and confident, he or she won't really even think about the steps it takes to roll a kayak back over again; the muscles simply take over. My roll obviously had lost this muscle memory, so I had to think about it. I set up the first time and felt the water pull at my paddle as if it were trying to pull it from my hands. I tucked my paddle back against the boat for a few seconds before I set up again. Then I counted to three, sort of psyching myself up (or out) for the actual attempt. But this time, unlike the last few times I've flipped over, the roll attempt worked, just like it should have. I was somewhat surprised, honestly.

Anyway, I made it back up. That right there was an improvement. As I said before, I didn't exactly clap my hands together and say, "Well, I guess I'm back to normal." The next day we put on the river with another paddler from the Memphis area, a guy who's a little newer to the sport. He's got a great roll (I envy it), but he'd never done the Nantahala before. I was slightly more adventurous on day 2, hitting more eddies and trying more moves that the day before, but I still didn't venture particularly close to the edge of my comfort zone. Again, when we got to the Falls at the end, I felt at least confident enough to run it. This time, I ran it upright. Still not the prettiest run I've made, but better than the last time. This second run made me feel better about my ability to run a rapid, the previous run when I flipped made me feel a little better about my ability to roll, and those are the two things I've been struggling with.

So, after two days on the river, I can say that, well, I'm still not close to 100%, but I do feel better. Of course, now we aren't going to have a chance to get to any river again for a few weeks. The next few weekends we'll either be out of town on family trips or I'll be working hard grading papers and preparing for the end of the school year. Hopefully the confidence I've gained will not ebb before I can get back in my boat, and hopefully I can drop a few pounds before that time arrives.

I miss my mom.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the death of my mother. I honestly don't believe there has been a single day since then that I have not thought of her. I'm constantly hearing or seeing things that trigger the thought, "Oh, I should tell Mom about this" or "Mom would love this". Many times things have happened during the day that I've wished I could talk to her about. I miss the sound of her voice on the long answering machine messages she used to leave (she'd always say, "I was just calling to say hi" and then leave a message that would inevitably get cut off by the machine because it had exceeded the time limit). I miss the confetti that used to fall out of every piece of mail she'd send me (when my husband and I got married we had gold confetti on the tables at the reception--little hearts and angels--and Mom must have swept every single bit into a bag or something, because for the seven years we were married before Mom passed away she'd put a couple bits into the envelops or tucked into the wrapping paper of whatever she'd sent us). Not long ago my father sent me an envelop with a few things, and wrapped in some tissue paper along with one of my mother's opal rings were a few pieces of confetti. I wept. Hindsight is always 20-20, and if I had known that the day she went into surgery (April 19, 2007) would be the last day I would talk to her, I would have let her know what a wonderful mother she was, and how proud I was to be her daughter. I like to think that she knows that anyway.

But boy do I miss my mom.

Remember Virginia Tech.

OK, so a funny (funny "huh?", not funny "ha ha") thing happened to me on the way to becoming a better kayaker: I got worse.

Not worse as in my skills have diminished, but I've lost two very important things to a kayaker (not my boat and my paddle): my confidence in my ability to run a rapid successfully, and confidence in my ability to roll back up if I DON'T run a rapid successfully.

I can't really explain why this has happened. It happened once before, back when my roll wasn't nearly as consistent as it has been (until recently, of course). I had two successive bad days on an easy river I had always enjoyed, swimming several times. I got some bumps and bruises, but more importantly, I got a really bad feeling of being out of control and not being able to do anything to help myself. For some reason, it really had an effect on my kayaking. I spent about a full year paddling very timidly, not willing to push myself or to try any moves or skills that might up my risk of flipping. If I did flip, I might try a halfhearted roll attempt, but it was pretty much a guarantee that I would swim. It wasn't until a weekend the next summer where we went back to the same river with a group of beginners that I suddenly snapped out of my malaise. Instead of worrying about my own paddling abilities and the likelihood I had of flipping over, I had a bunch of "newbies" who were swimming left and right or frantically paddling down the small rapids like baby ducklings behind me as I led them to safety down the easiest line possible. A we went along on that river and on another familiar river the next day, I realized that the newbies who were clinging to my stern down the rapids were NOT swimming. That more than anything gave me some confidence in my line-picking abilities. My new river running confidence and some roll practice on very small rivers with current helped tremendously, and I finally got enough courage in my abilities back to start trying the class III Ocoee.

From then until my spring paddling experiences this year, I haven't had any problems. Until about two months ago I hadn't had any swims in, gosh, maybe a about a year? And I hadn't had any real trouble with my roll--I've never had a flip-free run on the Ocoee, but it's never really surprised or shaken me when I've flipped. Then came a trip on the Locust Fork of the Warrior River in Alabama, about two months ago. This was the third time I've paddled that river, and I've always had a great time. I felt good, but I had a surprise swim in the middle of a class II rapid. I flipped and then tried three times to roll back up. The first time, I hit a rock that sent me back over when I was about three-quarters up out of the water. When I tried the second time, I brought my head up early, a cardinal sin in eskimo rolling that is guaranteed to drop you back in the water. The third attempt brought me up just as a curling wave slapped me in the face and prevented my getting any air. I abandoned the attempt and bailed out. I was shocked and a bit disappointed in myself. Later in the day, I had two more combat rolls. Neither was in a particularly rough place, but neither time did I successfully right myself on the first try. I left the river puzzled about my sudden difficulties.

About two weeks later we went up to the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee for an annual event called Creek Week. There are numerous rivers and creeks in the area, giving paddlers of just about every ability level (except perhaps people who've never been on moving water before) choices to go run. The first day I went with a large group on a class II-III river with more technical rapids (meaning they required more moves back and forth to avoid hazards) than any river I had previously run. I had a pretty good day overall, but I found myself not enjoying the river as much as I normally would. I started doubting my abilities to navigate the rapids successfully. I began viewing each new rock as an opportunity to flip over and find out how shallow and rocky the bottom really was. I stopped looking all the way down the rapids for the best possible route and started only looking at the water immediately in front of me for obstacles to avoid. I got intimidated, and started wondering how much it was going to suck to take a swim. So I pretty much set myself up to do just that, which I did, about halfway through the trip. I tried a few roll attempts, shanked them all (there were a few obstacles that affected the attempts, but that still isn't a particularly good excuse), and punched out. I'm probably lucky I only had one swim. The next day we went to a different, easier river, and I ended up not even running the whole thing because we had a newbie who had multiple swims and required hiking out back to the put-in. I won't lie; one of the reasons I volunteered to escort her rather than continue down the river was because I was nervous about a new river and wondering if I would swim that river as well. The third day I actually opted not to paddle at all, partly out of soreness from my long demanding hike of the day before, and partly out of that same intimidation. I had proven to myself that I couldn't handle creeking and technical water. Therefore I should not try any more of it.

We hadn't paddled since then, despite a few opportunities, and most telling of my new fears of failure, it didn't bother me that we didn't get out there. My husband was angling to run some new rivers, creeks of course since it was spring and the rain-dependent stuff was running, and I was terrified of the thought of running something new. I occasionally suggested some old standbys we'd done before, but they didn't tempt him. So we didn't paddle, and I was secretly glad when the opportunities passed by. Somehow I'd gone from enjoying my hobby to fearing it. Not good, especially for something we've spent so much money and time on.

This past week a group finally committed to going into the Ozarks and running a class II-III creek. I "playfully" voiced as many oppositions as I could: it's too far away, we have to get up too early, it'll be too cold, can't we run something closer, how hard will I have to try, etc. I didn't get my way, and I found myself reluctantly riding along on a trip into banjo country. The trip ended up taking way too long (over 6 hours instead of 4, due to some interesting navigational choices, a small gas tank, and a driver who got lost), and when a few people voiced concerns over whether we had time to run shuttle (get a vehicle down to the take-out so we had a way to get back to our cars after the river), I mentally crossed some fingers. Maybe we'd just give up and go home! I was a little carsick from the windy roads, a lot tired from the early morning wake-up time, and more than a little scared to put on the river. Again, I was already anticipating the beat down I was expecting to get and wondering how many times I was going to flip over. Sure enough, I made it probably less than 300 yards (only into the top part of the second rapid) before disaster struck in the form of one of my fellow boaters suddenly coming out of an eddy right in front of me. I panicked--I'm sure I could've prevented a flip if I'd thought my actions through, but I flinched away from him, which dropped my upstream edge and gave the river the edge of my kayak to grip. It flipped me, right in front of a big rock I had already identified as a major hazard (the current can push you against a large enough rock and pin you there). I made probably the worst roll attempts I've made in a long, long time, and bailed out. As soon as I got to the side of the river, I made up my mind that I wasn't going any further. I was close enough to the cars, and I had a key to our truck, and that was it. I was not going to spend the next ten miles of river swimming every rapid and dragging down the group. Hell with it. So I walked away.

I know everyone I was with was probably really disappointed in me. You know, get back on that horse again, and all that crap. If at first you don't succeed, yadda yadda yadda. I felt justified: it was cold, it was windy, I wasn't "feeling it", and I was ultimately sparing the group from having to shepherd me down the river. The truth is, I hadn't wanted to get on the river in the first place, and I was more than happy to get off it.

So, here's the position I find myself in. I have lost confidence in myself and my abilities. I have started fearing and dreading every kayaking trip. I have ceased having fun. I do NOT want to quit kayaking. This is a hobby I started doing with my husband, and I really like doing this together (well, except for the whole not liking it so much any more). I have made a lot of friends through kayaking that I do not really have much other cause to see and spend time with. I love the scenery and the outdoors. So the question is, what do I do now? How do I get back my confidence? How do I stop focusing on failure? How do I get the fun back?

One friend asked if identifying the causes might help. I really don't know what the causes are. There are been a few things about winter paddling that are different from the summer paddling that I so much enjoy. All the gear that one must wear to stay warm and protected makes me feel claustrophobic and smothered. I had some trouble with this in the depths of my last paddling crisis. I was about 75 lbs overweight back then. It helped to lose weight--my best paddling was after I had lost about 45 lbs. Unfortunately, since then I've put back on 20 of those lbs. Perhaps ramping back up the weight loss attempts will help. Also, summer is just around the corner, and maybe I'll start feeling better about my paddling when I don't have to wear so much gear. I have been wearing hand coverings called pogies to keep my hands warm; they're kind of like mittens that attach around the shaft of the paddle, so your hands are actually on your paddle but covered by something that keeps the wind off. Not as warm as gloves or mitts might be, but you have a better contact with your paddle because you can feel it in your hand. It's possible that they are affecting my roll--I can't feel the air on my knuckles to tell if I'm in the right set up position--I've worn the pogies on the last five rivers I've paddled, and I've swum on three of the five. I bought a playboat last year, and that's the boat I've taken to roll classes to practice with. It's extremely easy to roll, while my river running boat is actually pretty hard to roll. I suppose it's possible I've gotten lazy enough with my roll techniques to "lose" my roll in my river running boat. The group I kayak with had some controversy recently over the efforts of some people to "step up" and get better so they could run more difficult rivers. I got pretty upset by the whole thing. I have this strange issue with believing that I am "required" to do something (for example, I can swim laps for hours, but as soon as someone insists that I do it, like a coach, I don't want to do it anymore). As soon as I perceived that there were people I kayaked with who felt that I NEEDED to become a better boater, I got mad. Maybe I'm regressing just to spite someone. I don't know.

In any case, another suggestion my friend made was to go back to doing stuff that I like, and maybe "step down" for a while. My husband agreed; he said that perhaps going back to rivers I was extremely comfortable on and familiar with and working on fundamentals might be the way to get confidence back in both my rolling skills on the river and my navigational skills. We're planning on heading east this weekend, to the Nantahala and the Ocoee. I don't know of any other Memphis paddlers going kayaking with us that weekend, so I won't have any "performance anxiety" in front of any other people. Hopefully I can spend some time on rivers and find the fun again. I'll let you know how it goes.