cindy's world

Mr. W and I were watching TV yesterday and being playful as usual. I did something with my hand, and he retaliated by grabbing my hand and placing it over his chest to stop me from goofing off. With my hand over his chest, I said, “You pledge allegiance…to the flag…” and we laughed. I told him, “I say the Pledge of Allegiance 4 times a week.”
He said, “Really? Your judge wants that as part of a formal opening in court?”
I said, “No, we say it in jujitsu before we start class.”
“So you guys pay tribute to an American flag…in a class that teaches an oriental art…”
“…which is taught by a Latino man,” I added.
He laughed. But that is the beauty of this country. The good ol’ US of A, made by immigrants, for immigrants. (Altho I’m all for legal immigration, I must emphasize, to add unique flavors to our salad bowl country.)

In the same spirit (altho it didn’t occur to me until right now), right before Mr. W and I left his house yesterday afternoon to buy Oolong tea for his coworker from 99 Ranch Market, I put up this AFK message on AIM: “I’m off to a Fobby Supermarket to buy a Fobby Beverage with my non-fobby white boyfriend.” And then I thought about it and changed it a bit, since Mr. W was doing something at a desk next to me so I had a few moments. When I stepped away from my laptop, Mr. W had finished whatever it was he was doing, which he then showed me while announcing, “Who’s NOT fobby NOW?!” He was waving, yes, a completed application for 99 Ranch Market’s VIP frequent shopper program. I said, “I already changed my AFK message; look!” He leaned down and read, “I’m off to a Fobby Supermarket to buy a Fobby Beverage at the behest of my Fobby White Boyfriend” and cracked up.

Only in America.

I am stiff from the bottom of my skull down to my ankles. My wrists and forearms are sore.

Yay, me!

I’m just gonna take it easy on the elliptical trainer for 40 minutes or so at lunch today.

It still amazes me that women in their 40s and 50s can be so petty and so catty and so BORED that they’re going to gossip about someone who’s totally under the radar, and they’re going to say negative things to A SUPERVISOR that they made up on their own, and these people aren’t even FRIENDS with the person they’re talking about so they don’t have the inside information, and furthermore, their information is WRONG so they had to actually PUT IN the effort to LIE about something and someone! These people need to get a life, get laid, and/or get an anvil dropped on them. Why isn’t life more like a cartoon and less like a stupid soap opera? It’s so disheartening when I first came into contact with this crap/phenomenon 6 months ago, because I look up to women in their 40s and 50s because they’re, like, grownups! They’re like my parents’ age! And they act like elementary school kids with the gossip and the lying and the “if you’re friends with her then I’m no longer friends with you” and make people take sides as to who they can talk to?! Oh..my…gawd. It’s sad that cattiness and pettiness isn’t something you outgrow.

But here’s the bright side. The more they talk, the worse they make themselves look, cuz people with brains WILL consider the source. And the more they talk about a particular victim, the better that victim looks, especially when there are lots and lots of victims all of whom have done no wrong and have strong, positive character traits that everyone else knows. And the more they want to talk crap and stay away from me, the less I have to bother staying away from them. So they can make all the effort for all I care. Go ahead. Shoot yourself in the foot. I feel sorry for you losers.

I am frrreakin’ exhausted, man. I just came back from my third workout of the day, 7th of the week. My trainee and I did weights at lunch, then I had jujitsu after work, after which Navy Girl Vanessa and I headed to the gym for a 5K (3.12 mile) run, and then we hit the steam room for 2 cycles. There’s gonna be hell to pay on my body tomorrow. I’m full of fabric burn from the jujitsu grappling today, too. On our way from the treadmill to the locker room, Navy Girl said, “We are bad-ass, man! [giving me a high-five] Two hours of martial arts, then we did a full 5K without a break.” Yeah, I guess that’s pretty good. But then, she’s 4-5 years younger than me, and I’m feelin’ 30. 3 more months to enjoy being in my 20s. *freak*

Jordan, having just discovered the joy of adding sidebar links to her blog, put up this link for a site called “The Sneeze.” The particular posts this links to is this guy experimentally eating really gross stuff he found in a supermarket. His humor is hilarious. I had to duck under my desk a few times so I don’t get disruptive while the judge and attorneys are discussing the new Civil case we just got this morning. He’s sardonic and dry and that barely veils the silly weirdness of the things he’s doing. I LOVE humor like that. My humor is sometimes like that. Like how earlier in the week I observed flatly to Mr. W over the cell phone upon my drive home from jujitsu that I seem to keep forgetting to inhale after I exhale, and that I may have fallen on the back of my head and injured my medulla oblongata. He, for some reason, called me a hypochondriac, not getting that I was saying this tongue-in-cheek.

Yeah, well, you had to be there. =P

I just got word that on March 26 (Sunday), a movie crew’s going to be using our jury room for filming. A few years ago, Ray Romano’s movie Eulogy was shot in our courtroom and I was here, and got his autograph. He’s a very nice and down to earth guy, thanked me for letting them use our courtroom. We chatted a bit about his twins. I think the extra who used my desk dressed in bailiff’s uniform was trying to pick up on me. Anyway, I’d never seen Eulogy, and it seems to have bombed in the theatres. I don’t even know whether our courtroom scene was kept in thru the edit.

Today at lunch, I learned that I can run 3 miles without socks on.

Five minutes later, I learned that I can not run 3.25 miles without socks on.

It’s really too bad, because for once I have enough energy, time, and MP3 power to hit a solid 4 miles. “Murphy’s Law,” my court reporter told me in the locker room. Oh well. At least I ran something, 3.3 miles of it, plus 0.2 miles of a cool-down walk. When I realized I had neglected to bring socks after I was parked in the gym parking lot, I contemplated turning around and returning to work, or grabbing a bite. But I had already missed yesterday’s lunchtime workout to have lunch with my coworkers, so I can’t skip any more lunchtime workouts this week. (New rule: I can only miss 1 evening [jujitsu] workout and 1 noontime workout a week.)

I limped back to work just now. I have a blister on my right foot right at the side of the arch, where these particular shoes happen to connect with my foot. *sigh*

Today, as I sit here watching the time tick away while waiting for the last of 4 attorneys to arrive so that we can take the verdicts on our 3-defendant gang-related armed robbery case, I am grateful for the cut-and-paste function which I applied in the many minute orders for today’s proceedings.

What the heck? I wrote a whole entry and it appeared to save but then it totally disappeared! Ugh, I hate doing the same post again, it never reads quite the same. And the constant phone calls and interruptions! Grrr.

Jordan copied and posted my “Iris” entry on her blog, and I read it on there through the eyes of people who don’t know me and have never read my blog. And boy, I sound vain and conceited in the I-tie-everything-in-to-my-looks part.

People who don’t know me don’t know that I was anorexic for years in high school. It was all about trying — and failing — to get myself to look a certain way or fit into a certain size. The more I failed, the more I obsessed about getting there. Success and happiness in life became defined by losing a pound; failures in life were gaining 3 pounds. My weight was the end-all to everything. If someone was mean to me, it was because I’m fat. If someone had a crush on me, it was because I’d recently dropped a few pounds. That’s how it was in my head. Pulling on a fat roll frustrated me to the point of tears. I had started defining who I am by my appearances, whether good or bad, and not not based on who I actually was.

Of course I blame my body’s present inability to respond to diet and exercise on anorexia. I have to work 5 times as hard to get a fraction of the results. Any normal person with my workout and diet regimen would be slender, toned, with a six-pack. Instead, I sit here, a chubby girl, always battling battling battling. My metabolism’s ready to switch off at any time and turn into fat-storing mode whenever I skip a meal. It sucks. I have frustrated many a good personal trainer, who have encouraged me to get my thyroid tested (I’m borderline hypothyroidism, too.)

I think it does help to be with a man who thinks I’m beautiful whether I gain or lose 5 pounds (at least, he sounds sincere in expressing his attraction to me), and realizing that over all the obsessing about physique, I value my mind more than I do my physical appearance. Maybe I can never get down to 22% body fat. Maybe I just have to be okay with 30% body fat, as long as I’m healthy. My heart, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, everything have invariably tested in the “very good” range.

Or maybe I should just get liposuction and let my body maintain its same equilibrium now, just with 10-20 pounds less fat hanging off me.

I was too tired to go to jujitsu yesterday evening, so I decided to run my errands after work. I stopped by the bank, upgraded my checking account to this great new free checking program they told me about just before I ordered checks, and thereby ordered my free checks (now I’m so glad that stupid mail order check company screwed up). Then I went to a local haircut place. There were 3 people waiting, 1 in the chair, and there appeared to be 1 person cutting hair. I left. Mr. W suggested I call the upscale salon by his place that had me on the wait list all weekend. I did, and they said they were completely booked up except for…oh…a 6pm appointment. “What time is it now?” I asked. “5:20.” “I’ll be there.” I grabbed my laptop and tax stuff and drove 20 miles down there, arriving 5 minutes late.

I pretty much told the lady to do whatever she thinks would look good cuz my hair was completely grown out, anyway. I told her the backup was to cut it really short, above my shoulders. She didn’t want to do that, she said she liked my hair long, thought about trimming an inch or two, but then opted for about 3.5 inches and relayered everything. She trimmed the bangs a little, left them long and sweeping across my forehead, blew the layers outward to give a very retro-70s go-go-girl flip. It was really cute. Of course, when I do my own hair, it’ll flip inward, not outward. The first person to notice today was my trial DA. So I guess it isn’t very extreme of a cut, but it is a nice refreshing change.

While I was at the salon, Mr. W and his daughter (who had been having dinner at a Red Robin nearby) stopped by the front glass wall and waved and pointed and mimed. Yes, mimed. Mr. W mimed walking down stairs with his daughter piggyback on his back, and almost couldn’t get back up from the squat position. “You know them?” the lady doing my hair asked. “No,” I replied.

Then I went to Mr. W’s house where I did most of my taxes. It was a very productive evening.