CHAIRwoman of the Bored

I wonder how many employers have ever wondered what it's really like at work when they take a day off. Do they think their employees come in late, take an extra long lunch, read magazines, play games on their computers, nap? Heck, yeah!! Oh, to be a fly on the wall. Well, wait no longer. I have proof. "Somebody" followed me around last Friday to chronicle your behind the scenes look at an employee gone wild. The first chair I tried out was too big - that's the one where I'm reading Sports Illustrated. The second chair I tried was too small. It's the chair I'm using to play Scrabble. Omg - how did that get on my screen?? Btw, I'm winning. "Somebody" took the picture before my score was posted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm the monkey. The chair is so small you can't even see it, can you? And then finally the chair that was just right - the one where I'm reading my Corvette mag. Yawn, so tired. Time for a nap. That was a very busy day. And if you ever want to try this yourself, make sure that the "somebody" taking the pictures is the boss's daughter! Hey, if I'm going down, I'm not going alone!

What's the coolest thing you've done when your boss wasn't around? ;)

Bend it like Debbie (Yogatta love it!)

Blessed are the flexibles, for they shall never be bent out of shape...

Meet my yoga instructor. She walks, she talks, she bends like an action figure! And speaking of action figures, you have got to check out yogabeans. It's written by a female blogger who poses action figures into yoga poses and writes taglines to go along with the pictures. It's hilarious. I found this blog while stumbling around looking for information on the type of yoga Debbie teaches.

Debbie is certified in Hatha Yoga. In Sanskrit, ha means sun, tha means moon. Hatha yoga is the practice of harmonizing the body’s inner currents (principally the currents of Feeling, Thinking, Willing, and Acting) until they are in perfect balance. I found this information at yogaworld.org. To be honest, once I got the pictures I found there wasn't much to write about. I mean, think about it. Not much to yoga but breathe, breathe, breathe.

Ok, so we've got Debbie in the wheel pose (top left) and the tree pose with me below. Di joined the class last night and a fellow yogi snapped this great picture of Debbie, myself, and Di except I closed my eyes (I was meditating, I tell ya!). Eye have to give credit to Di for those beautiful green eyes - I couldn't be happier (or laughing more) with the editing! Be sure to enlarge this picture by double clicking to see her handiwork. And, last but not least, we have Abby in dog down pose. Despite the fact greyhounds don't bark (keeping your neighborhood safe for burglars), you can practice yoga with them anytime.

Q How many yogis does it take to change a light bulb?

A Into what?

Honey, I blew up the blender!

Well, now, there you go - the Breakfast of Champions. Did I say Champions? I'm sorry. I meant breakfast of a weekend warrior - once a week cyclist, twice a week yogi, occasional kayaker. I got hooked on green smoothies the beginning of this year and I drink a quart of this concoction EVERY morning. My green smoothie consists of spinach, frozen bananas, strawberries, pineapple, and dulse (a form of seawood added for its nutritional value but virtually tasteless). You really can't taste the spinach either. Green smoothies can be any greens and any fruit that appeals to you.

In case you were wondering, I have copied "Why Raw Food" from the web page of the herbalist I took a 6- week class from earlier this year on raw food.

Cooking food disrupts its molecular structure and kills all the enzymes it contains. Enzymes are the indispensable biological catalysts which enable the body to utilize nutrients. Think of enzymes as the workmen and nutrients as the bricks and mortar. Without the workmen, the bricks and mortar don’t get put into place. From digestion to immune function to growth to energy production to cell repair, literally every chemical reaction that the body relies on for survival requires enzymes.

Heating food over 105 degrees F begins to destroy most of the nutrients as well as the enzymes. Vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, fats, antioxidants and phytochemicals are extremely heat sensitive and will diminish, or even become harmful, when cooked. By 118 degrees F, most food is dead. Yes, the nutrients are still there, but injured and in a greatly altered molecular state - not at all what nature provided. Your body is burdened with creating the missing enzymes, and processing, even fighting against, the damaged nutrients. Proteins coagulate and are difficult to digest. Minerals are less soluble. Fats turn into trans fatty acids, which create damaging free radicals. Your immune system must work overtime to eliminate these unnatural substances created when food is cooked.

Fresh, raw food is living and full of nature’s energy. Each cell of the body is like a tiny battery, and raw, living foods supply the bioelectricity which charges these batteries. The sprouting ability of raw foods demonstrates the life-force within them.

Consider that wild animals (those undisrupted by man) eat things as nature produced them. Usually they eat the whole food, such as fruits, roots, leaves, grass, weeds, seeds and berries. Even carnivores eat their catch raw and in its entirety, including the contents of the stomach, which provides plant material.

These animals do not suffer from diseases. They have no cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes or any of the other 27,000 diseases of civilized mankind.

Eating raw is nature’s first law; every species on the planet does it except man and his domesticated animals.

I'm not there yet - not by a long shot. To hear Curt tell the story, I'm still microwaving Amy's vegetarian lasagna every night while I'm reading another book on raw food. I guess it's not too far from the truth. I'm trying though. I gave up meat. That's a start. And you have no idea how hard it was not to order a hot dog when we went to the Diamondbacks game in May. I guess that would be like Thanksgiving without turkey. OMG. No turkey on Thanksgiving?!

So I really did blow up the blender over the weekend. This was a great excuse to order the VitaMix I've been wanting ever since I took the class. I was getting by with the blender but the VitaMix is going to make a big difference in what I can prepare. Oh, and that juicer Curt was asking about a couple of blogs ago? Believe it or not, I've got the Officer's Club (dehydrator) built and the new golf course (VitaMix)...

Triple, Triple!

I've hit the triple, triple (both red premium squares at once) before but not like last night! For me it was like hitting the jackpot because I believe it was my highest scoring play ever - 140 points!!! It wasn't a natural but I'm not complaining. A natural doesn't use any blanks. And to put things in perspective, I've met the guy who holds the record for the highest scoring single play - 338 points and it WAS a natural. The word was "DEFUZING" played on a triple, triple with the "Z" landing on a double letter premium square. He's an expert player and I met him at my first Nationals in New Orleans. The game is not without its celebrities. I guess you might say it's like rubbing elbows with Andy Potts, Hunter Kemper, or Sarah Reinerston at a triathlon!

Ok, so if you haven't spotted it yet, I played "BLINKERS" at the top left hand corner. The "L" was already on the board. If the "K" had been there my score would have been 185 points - wow!! Tom, my Scrabble buddy, and I only played three games last night because he got here later than usual. He won the first two games and even with 140 points, I only won this game by 21 points (420 to 399). I was seriously behind. Tom had just played "FLINTIER" and I didn't like the play. I thought the word was phony but one of the cardinal rules in Scrabble is to assess the play before you make any decisions. Yeah, maybe the word is phony but can I use it to my advantage? That's what you have to ask yourself. In this particular case I couldn't play off his word but if I challenged AND lost, I would lose my next turn. Tom's next move would be to block the triple, triple. So I gambled. I let his play stay on the board and put down "BLINKERS." So do you like "FLINTIER?" It's good - I couldn't believe it.

I made the right move here which is something I can't give myself credit for too often. Too often I lose these close games in the clinch. In the first game we played tonight I overdrew one tile. There were 5 tiles left in the bag and I only needed four. In this situation, if you haven't mixed your tiles with the ones on your rack, you turn them all upside down and your opponent gets to turn over three. He then decides which tile is going back in the bag. As luck would have it, I had to say goodbye to the blank. That could have been the difference between winning and losing that game. You have to be careful. But I will take credit for "QUOIN" for 42 points and the other bingo on the board "STATIONS." I earned 60 points for that one which is a very low-scoring bingo. In the end, it's just my word against his! There's more where that came from, sorry! LOL

I'm a Blogger

I feel much better now that I've admitted that and got it off my chest. Because it's an addiction, you know? I don't think many people would confess. It robs you of time that could be spent constructively or OUTDOORS for crying out loud. And think of the people with families or spouses - what about them? If you're in the perfect world (like Di and Bigun), you're both bloggers and no one complains. But my husband is not a blogger. He couldn't begin to understand the hours spent on Video Cure just finding the right music. Well, it isn't finding the right music that's so time-consuming. The problem is finding a song that actually works - half of the songs have broken links so they don't work at all. That explains why you don't hear "Little Red Corvette" by Prince or "Green Eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf when my blog opens. Okay, okay, GEL is SO old it's not even on Video Cure. And then there's everything that's happening in your world that you just can't wait to write about. Your mind starts reeling the minute you pick your head up off the pillow. It's still running in the shower. How long until lunch so I can check my blog and my friend's blogs? There's not enough time tonight to post a new blog. How long until the weekend? On and on and on...

I picked up my corvette today. It's been in the shop since someone broadsided me on May 7. This woman wasn't watching where she was going and crushed my passenger door. The only good thing about this accident is that no one was hurt. I was crushed more than my door. So my baby's back. Not sure if the car looks "like it never happened" because I picked it up in the middle of a torrential downpour. Hurricane season began yesterday and so did Tropical Storm Barry. Was Barry just waiting for June 1? A little strange, don't you think? I was hoping to take pictures of my car after it had been detailed but it wasn't meant to be. It's like going to get my hair done - my hair will never look as nice as the stylist makes it look. Same way with wax jobs. LOL. So while I'm busy blogging Curt yells in to ask if I bought the juicer I've been talking about forever. I tell him no and he tells me that I'm like the Air Force. The Air Force built the Officer's Club and the Golf Course and then went to Congress to say they needed more money for the runway. I told you he was funny - the source of my best material.

Life is Better on the Porch

I worked until about 10:30 today and then left because there wasn't much to do. I'm an hourly employee so it's easy to do sometimes. So I stopped at the mall on my way home to pick up some greeting cards for the month of June. What hurts is when you leave to go shopping because you're spending money but not making any. I grabbed some hot chocolate at Starbucks because I'm not a coffee drinker - I never have been. Coffee is my favorite ice cream flavor and I love the smell of fresh coffee brewing but I never acquired the taste for it otherwise. Anyhow, I ordered a small hot chocolate with skim milk and the guy asked me if I still wanted whipped cream. Hello!!! Hey, I can afford the whipped cream if I give up the whole milk, I'm thinking. Linda's logic.

And it never ceases to amaze me what the rest of the world is doing while I'm working. Going to the mall in the middle of the day on a week day is a rare occasion but also very enjoyable. There were a lot of mothers pushing strollers and older folks for the most part. They were people unlike myself who visit the mall in a hurry at the end of the day because I need something quick or on the weekend when the mall becomes overpopulated. In other words, no one was rushing around and there was time to be friendly. I especially loved the woman who had just found the perfect card at the Hallmark store and JUST had to share it with me. I've actually done this when I'm laughing so hard and can't resist showing someone else the card I'm reading. And it's even more fun with a friend. Right, Carol??! So back to the woman who was buying a Father's Day for her brother. This card had fireflies all over it and she said that she used to catch them with her brother when they were younger. Well, you know what? I did the same thing with my brother and so I bought the same card. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. It WAS perfect.

And I bought a cell phone charger for Curt's car because it's on the list of hurricane supplies that won't be taxed between June 1 - June 12. Yep, today is the beginning of hurricane season. I bought it at the Verizon Wireless kiosk where normally the people waiting to be served are three deep for every sales rep. This guy even had time to talk to me which was a real treat. Lately I'm stopping at stores and the sales people are on cell phones even while they're ringing up your purchase. It's just not right, I tell ya. I also observed men making deliveries and waving to people through the glass store fronts. For a moment, all felt right with the world.

Life is better on the porch is a new ad promo for Starbucks. Maybe it's not new. I don't notice things right away, actually. When I realized we had a new copier in the office someone told me it had been there about six months. I don't get out much either. Whole shopping centers are built in between the times I ride by. It's amazing. But life on the porch was a good way to desribe the way I'm feeling today. I can't say I'm ready to retire to the porch. I have to be careful because my boss reads my blog! BUT, spending time on the porch during the week sure is worthwhile.