9-1-1 Zumba!

This weekend, just because I was tired of the ordinary trauma that makes up my Saturday mornings, I decided to test the waters of the exercise craze called Zumba. Somehow in comparison, changing the litter boxes is no longer the extended torture that I thought. It was a good experience. After all, those lungs won’t explode themselves.

Zumba, which means “cardiac arrest,” in a language spoken in wheezing noises, is no more difficult than tap dancing through a crowd of snarling Weight Watchers dropouts wearing a bologna thong, scaling a mountain made of glass shards at high speed, or convincing a bride’s mother that hip-hop beer pong is the go-to game for shower parties in the church parlor.

It’s kind of a cross between auditioning as a rodeo clown and dancing a two-step over hot coals. But according to available demonstration videos, you do it wearing a midriff top, hiphugger pants, and a smile, and you do it to the charismatic beat of Latin music, which adds the same special flavor as a kick me sign taped to your crotch.

Since baring my belly would be akin to inviting navel whiplash and subjecting bystanders to sudden thrashing movements of my stomachs, I chose to wear a large T-Shirt. This also served as a container for sixteen gallons of sweat that collected in my cleavage and rained down on my bellies like a cloudburst in a rainforest.

The Zumba people urged me to “feel the beat and let loose.” I think I felt the beat, although that could have been the beginnings of spleen implosion, and upon thoughtful consideration, I felt that letting loose could result in a hefty cleaning bill for the upholstery, the living room Oriental, and possibly also for the dog.

Just as I got the hang of the thing, the draft caused by the up-tempo undulations of my love handles flailing against each other like a truck full of chickens on a downhill grade sent furballs and dustbunnies swirling together in a sort of mystic indoor whirlwind, and with with the sweat-laced currents from my thighs flapping together like an Ace of Spades in Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France bicycle spokes, I couldn’t help wonder if the weather alert people were going to slap a severe weather warning for my neighborhood on the Emergency Channel.

To be honest (I’m a coward), I started with a half hour of my usual workout, which involves rigorously snapping my fingers to the beat of my favorite Barry Manilow tunes. Then I finished up with fifteen minutes of Zumba from a video I found on You Tube.

I know now that fifteen minutes in Zumba time is equivalent to whichever era in world history killed all the dinosaurs. I’m reasonably sure that the dinosaurs died following an actual Zumba workout.

This one almost did.

Zip It

All in all, I’d rather polish my nails with a power sander than go shopping for blue jeans. You think that the old pair would take pity and hold out at least until President’s Day, but apparently old blue jeans don’t make New Year’s resolutions. (Old Jeans: I resolve to band my fibers together to uphold truth, justice, and ten pounds of pumpkin pie.)

The stroke of midnight saw the Old Year pull one last trick and jam the zipper on my trusty blues like the door of Cheesecake Heaven on Weight Watchers graduation day.

I want to be like Michelle Obama. I can tell just by looking that she can walk into a department store and pull on a pair of jeans like Batman with a new set of pointy ears; no wrinkles, gaps, or gathers, everything fits where it’s supposed to, and you can sit down without accidently blowing your nose.

The last time I tried on jeans, the seat grabbed my thighs like a ravenous Koala clutching a pair of chubby bamboo stalks and tried to chew through to freedom. I still have a nasty zipper tattoo inside my knee, and ugly memories of an unfortunate incident with a reinforced seam.

Fastening your jeans shouldn’t be like arm wrestling a wolverine. The first time I tried to put on my jeans after the holidays I think I invented a new Yoga position, Downward Moon Salutations, followed by a new jump for figure skaters, the triple klutz. These days when I pull the wretched things out of the drawer, the dogs take up strategic positions under the coffee table. I saw one using the fruit bowl as a crash helmet.

It’s not that I don’t have admirable intentions for the fate of my physical condition in the coming year. I intend to commit acts of exercise that will make a profound difference on the shape of my horizons. This is the year I will see my knees without the aid of a three-way mirror and a headband with a periscope attached.

But if all else fails I may need reflective safety tape, a video camera, and a trusted comrade who can keep a secret.

Wonder if the dog can handle that camera.

Here Comes Da Judge, There Goes My Lunch

After two days of fun and festivities starring on I Dream of Jury Duty, I’ve come to the startling realization that a jury of my peers is the last thing I want to come across if I’ve done something bad enough to land me in the little gray room where the man in charge wears a black dress.

When I think of my peers, I’m conjuring up images of Penelope Cruz with a Wal-Mart wardrobe.

Would you believe Megan Fox’s non-anorexic sister?

How about Barbara Bush sporting chubby stretch jeans and a maternity top?

Apparently a jury of my peers is likely to be those folks shuffling around Wal-Mart in backless slippers in the wee morning hours, waving a denture cream coupon at a frightened clerk and checking to see if the lite beer is on sale. Or the folks who would have to take donations to collect a full set of teeth who are trying to get the family rate at the cattle barn section of the county fair.

A glance at the photo album on the bottom of the stack is enough to remind me that our family reunion looks more like Night of the Zombie Prom than a Sunday School gathering. A single glance at a table of my relatives--Aunt Rhoda is wiping gravy from her mustache and Uncle Bob can never remember to secure all the fasteners on his overalls—tells me that I’d rather head straight down to the Boogeyman’s Castle than expose my private business to a panel of these folks. To me, the theme is Bring In The Clowns, but to the side of Law & Order, Aunt Rhoda is the author of somebody’s Bill of Rights. It’s hard enough to shop for Christmas gifts for these people; to think they could be the guardians of freedom is like expecting Paula Deen to preside over a Weight Watcher’s Convention.

Now I’ve witnessed a set of jury peers with my very own peepers and the experience left me with a new appreciation for the law. Before I help myself to any more zucchini from the neighbor’s garden, I’m going to stop and consider what kind of splash the evidence will make when presented to the jury. I wish I could say the same thing for the hefty lady that showed up in court to get her photos back from a stalker friend. This was the kind of cheesecake that rots the cherries before you ever get to the graham cracker crust.

But even after my personal experience in the jury end of the hygiene pool, I am a supporter of Freedom, Truth, and the Right to Bare Arms.

But now I know why Justice is blind.

Breadline or Bust

The irrationally optimistic weatherman called for snow here today, which in South Carolina is something like having Weight Watchers announce that Amaretto cheesecake will be the favored menu item at their Christmas buffet. Those folks straining the door supports down at the Weight Watchers meeting know it’s not true, just like we know that it will rain macaroni and cheese before we see a snowflake, but by golly, we’re going to be prepared, just in case.

When the temperature dips below 40 degrees Fahrenheit and wild rumor spreads the S word around like compost on the vegetable garden, or if somebody kicks over a cup of ice at the Dairy Queen and it doesn’t melt before a refill arrives, the Piggly Wiggly rule goes into effect and everyone in the tri-county area proceeds to the local supermarket to show solidarity in the bread and milk departments.

This is the moment when the Live Action News cameras arrive from the major networks. Southerners may collect accomplishments like Leprechauns hoard pots of gold, but it’s not likely that the rest of the world is going to see us on the news pulling Timmy from the well. You’re going to see action packed newsreels of Lurlene pushing a buggy piled high with grocery store white bread, pork rinds, and a tribe size of Charmin, charging past the fresh fruit to beat her sister to the express lane checkout. And when tornado weather rolls through, the news channels race like greyhounds hot on the robot rabbit’s trail to be the first one with Live-Eye footage of a double-wide trailer spinning through the air like a boomerang.

This used to bother me when I was younger. Nowadays I can’t help but wonder why our country is obsessed with women in foam curlers and hair nets buying Moon Pies or the airborne velocity of the family Windstream. But in a country where a team of folks eating insects or a set of parents feuding over TV rights to a flock of kids can draw a major market share of attention, it’s no wonder Southern disasters spark the network glare.

When it comes to entertainment value, some people have it and some people don’t. Around here we spread it on toast and eat it for breakfast with our cheese grits. Which reminds me. The sun just ducked behind a cloud. I’d better go buy bread. You never know when the weatherman just might be right.

And To Think Noah Had Two of Each

We usually go to the annual dog show in the big city next door, if for no other reason than to see what we could have had. We love our dogs, but without us, they’d be in the line for federal assistance. There are two of them, which in Bible language is a multitude.

Lucy is a Dachshund mix. I’m not real sure what’s in the mix, but she looks like the love child of a link sausage and Daffy Duck. Lucy could give Jennifer Lopez diva lessons. She has an aversion to dog food, getting her feet wet, and sharing the Earth with other life forms. We can’t open the door, turn on the television, or stroll into the kitchen without having her alert the news media with a dedicated barkfest. We've taken to flushing on the sly when she goes outside to eat ants.

Bo is a Lab mix. If you noticed a trend, it’s true. All our dogs are mixes. It’s so much easier than making one from scratch. Just be careful when adding the water, so it doesn’t overflow.

Bo is a talented liar. To hear him tell the tale, he hasn’t been fed since finding the stray square of Shredded Wheat under the refrigerator in 2005. At present he is on the Atkins diet, having failed miserably at Weight Watchers, the Zone, and the cabbage soup diet, the last of which gave our kitchen a signature scent I’d rather not discuss and gave Bo the opportunity to spend a lot of time outside.

I’ve read him all the articles about walking off the weight, but he whiles away his time table surfing for bread crumbs and licking likely spots off the linoleum. He has no shame and will face off with the big, brown-eyed “I’ve never been fed” look if he thinks he can score a bite of your peanut butter sandwich.

The dogs are supervised at all times by the house warden, Justin. Justin is a tabby cat whose official title is Supreme Ruler of the Household and Wielder of Sharp Claws. Unfortunately, as is the case with many heads of state whose family tree is shadowed with intertwined branches, Justin is common sense challenged. Most cats understand that if a space is occupied by another object, they should find somewhere else to lurk. Not Justin. Therefore he has numerous wounds and abrasions inflicted by flower pots or dishes or wayward dogs who weren’t quick enough to escape breaking his fall.

For aesthetic reasons, and to earn the gratitude of our feathered friends who, it turns out, take us for granted and write ugly messages on our windshields when the feeder runs dry, Bill Dear hung a bird feeder in the tree outside our bathroom window. This window is a favorite perch for Justin, who amuses himself by chatting with the birds outside.

However, the window ledge is too small for Justin’s elderly, but massive frame (another candidate for fat-free catnip), and is high off the ground to boot. So Justin sits for hours on the bathtub, staring at the window and willing himself to levitate so that he can see the birds. Occasionally we take pity on him and hold him up to the window, but this became embarrassing when our friends found out. (So, Bill, I hear you hold your cat up to the window so he can see out. Why don’t you just buy him a canary?) It’s not the sort of thing that a man likes to talk about around the water cooler at work.

Despite his best efforts (Bill Dear’s present method of discipline is threatening divorce and shooting me ugly looks across the potatoes at dinner), I’m sure Justin’s kingdom will increase. There is an invisible sign etched into the atmosphere above our house that beams longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates to homeless animals all over the globe. “SLEEP WARM! EAT FREE! OPERATORS STANDING BY!”

I just hope the offer ends soon. I’m tired of sleeping in the doghouse.