Yay, Friday!!!!

Bad blogging week, good gym week. I'm a born again exercise nut. I'm becoming religious about the gym, but not obsessive (yet) - 4 or 5 times a week, and the days can vary depending on what else is going on. I went tonight, last night I grocery shopped. I probably won't make it tomorrow, but I might. I need this habit - too much sitting and too much work stress are a recipe for a heart attack. I leave work tired and have to shout down the voice in my head that says, "You're too tired for the gym, go home and collapse!" I go to the gym anyway. And a weird thing happens -my stress goes away, my energy returns, and I feel so much better. I heart the elliptical trainer - the device I used to shun because it was so hard for me. I can do 40 minutes now, and my average speed has increased with every workout. I found an amazing crunch machine - I'd watched other people use it and thought it was perfect for my Lower Body Issues. Holy Shit, it's hard! I'm used to being able to do between 45 and 100 pounds on almost all of the machines, depending on the machine. So this one was set to 40 pounds and I hopped on and tried a crunch. Nothing happened. I almost thought the machine had some sort of locking mechanism I was too stupid to see. I moved the weight down to 10 pounds and was able to do a crunch. It was me, I could not move 40 pounds no matter how I tried. I got through a set at 10 lbs. and they were hard. When I say I have NO abs, I am not kidding. So this machine and I must become very good friends.

Good work week, got first review, they like me. I'm getting a much better feel for the job and in two or three more months I'll be fully up to speed. I'm not kidding -it's that complex.

I felt very Angry Black Bitch this morning, though in my case it's Snarky White Bitch. If you are an ABB reader, you have treasured, as I do, her take on the morning adventures of Matt 'n Katie on the Today Show. This morning I was puttering around, drying hair, getting ready for work, and heard Matt announce an interview with a mother of three who has achieved a lofty goal. I paused in my getting ready - is she a medical student, planning to be a neurosurgeon? Did she start her own business? Write a bestseller?

Um. She's a cheerleader. For the Baltimore Ravens. She's married to the CEO of some company, and she's really blonde and perky. That's her accomplishment - marrying well and having very white teeth and being a cheerleader.

This was followed in short order by a treacly piece with the woman who just had her 16th kid - and did anyone else think Children of the Corn when they saw that clan?

So that was the Today Show's image of "women to admire" this morning - cheerleading and breeding.

The TV arrives tomorrow. I tried to move the old TV tonight, and couldn't. I hope those delivery guys are nice and I can impose on them to get that monster out of my house to the curb.

Dudley has school, and Girl doesn't want to take him alone because she's somewhat afraid of the instructors, who really are hardcore dog trainers. This ain't Petsmart, baby, these people finish Utility Dogs. (If you're not a dog person, just think of it as Canine Rhodes Scholar.) Not that we have this aspiration for Dudley. He's reasonably cooperative when we signal Down. We're good with that.

But today he demonstrated what a Very Good and Smart Boy he really is. When I'm at work, Girl is either at an early class or in bed sleeping because she worked the night before, so I put Dudley in his crate in the living room when I leave the house. He's housebroken, he's a very good boy in general, but he's 8 months old and 8 month old dogs have poor impulse control - I don't feel safe with him on his own when nobody's awake to ask, "What are you doing?" when we hear an odd noise, because the answer might be "Standing on the end table to see if I can knock the lamp off." So I'm going around, grabbing my lunch, phone, keys, the usual morning drill, and he's watching me, and I said, "I'm going to work now baby!" and Dudley went to his crate and hopped in.

I didn't give him a command, I didn't gesture to it - he was watching what I was doing and knew what I was saying, and where he was supposed to go. And he went there. What a good boy - and a smart, smart dog.

Knitting - it's still OCD Feather and Fan world around here. All I've worked on is the shawl, which is Bad because we're finally getting into decent sweater season and I should be working on the green grandpa sweater instead. I promise a picture tomorrow Debi - we'll finally get some sunshine!