Filed under: Exercise, Food/Drink, Posts | Tags: alcoholic, bars, chardonnay, drinking, drinks, Exercise, lactic acid, wine, workouts
What my friends give me when I get uppity and ask for a buttery chardonnay…
Chardonnay is the perfect substitute for an intense workout.
Yeah, you heard me. I said it.
Now let me work my way around to it and you’ll see how my flawless logic enabled me to skip many a workout, guilt-free.
When you workout, your body converts sugar into energy. During intense exercise, there may not be enough oxygen to complete the process, so your body makes lactic acid in response. But this can build up in your body more rapidly than you can burn it off. Symptoms of lactic acid build-up are cramps, nausea, weakness and exhaustion.
Chardonnay’s delicious buttery taste comes from lactic acid produced after the first fermentation. Too much Chardonnay can leave your crampy, weak, nauseous and even exhausted the next day.
So…if you don’t like to exercise, stick with a buttery Chardonnay. You’ll be fooling your body into thinking you had a workout!
You’re welcome. That is all.
Filed under: Misc. Humor | Tags: christianity, entertainment, fun, games, Poker, religion
Now before some of you lose your minds and start planning how you’re going to blow up my blog with comments about your faith, your religion or how insensitive I am….
RELAX.
This is an idea I came up with in the middle of a hot flash at 4:00am – not my best work, but that’s what I was thinking about so now you get to think about it, too.
Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, we need to talk poker. For those of you who don’t know how to play poker, there comes time in every player’s game that they choose to bluff (or not) about what cards they’re holding. Sometimes this is out of desperation, and sometimes it’s a calculated lie designed to throw others into confusion about when you may or may not be telling the truth later in the game. Most people have a “tell” or small mannerism that will let others know when they are bluffing.
I have a theory that how you play poker reflects your spiritual beliefs, or at least where you are on the spectrum of being a believer in something higher than yourself or not. Over time, your faithfulness will be your “tell.”
Don’t worry, people – I’m not going to call out you Baptists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Bhuddists, Muslims, Jews or anybody else. I’m just going to lay out some completely unfounded observations about the game of poker and who might be more inclined to play one way or another based on their level of faith, no matter what religion they are.
Poker players who often go “all in” (bet their entire wad on one hand) are probably atheists. After all, what have they got to lose? There is no higher being to pray to for help or that is controlling the outcome of the game. It’s harder to bluff an atheist, but heck…miracles happen. When atheists win, they like to point out to the rest of the players that they were bluffing so the faithful (they hope somewhere deep down) will learn that being gullible is bad. And, when atheists are done playing, they simply walk away…or pass out on the couch after watching Ancient Aliens while they wait for everyone else to finish.
The faithful (if they’re playing at all) will bluff too, but for a different reason – they instinctively feel that because the atheists don’t believe in things they can’t prove, atheists won’t believe that others are as good at bluffing as they are. The faithful also tend to fall for the bluff more than other players – they already believe in something they can’t see or prove, so believing another player got the royal straight flush on the river card isn’t that much of a stretch. When the faithful are finished playing, they frequently can be found looking introspective, trying to find the meaning behind the loss.
Agnostics, however, are the biggest losers in poker because they are constantly hedging their bets. They ante on every play, no matter what they have in their hand, because the flop might just have that magical or miracle combination to make that 7 and 8 worth it. Then, they put in just enough on each betting round to stay in, but won’t commit to the big pots. Eventually they fold somewhere in the middle of the game, having steadily lost their chips out of fear of taking the plunge, one way or the other. Without the freedom of the atheists and the cushion of the faithful, they resolve to play differently next time, even though this never happens.
But what about people who don’t give religion a second thought…like, ever? Aaahhh…these are the poker players you should fear. Why? Because they aren’t praying or trying to control their own destinies or hedging their bets – they’re thriving on their love of the game. They live in the moment. Do they bluff? Maybe – but what’s more important to them is that they’re playing at all.
Is that how you should go through life? Completely in the moment without a thought to what’s next, or if there’s something bigger out there? I doubt it – but in these uncertain times, being in the moment may be exactly what you need, even if only for a little while.
So deal the cards and play how you play – but just remember to be happy you’re sitting at the table.
Filed under: Misc. Humor | Tags: beard, fashion, humor, makeup, men, relationships, shaving
(Before I go on, full disclosure: I don’t like beards. On anyone. If someone wants to kiss me and their face feels like a dog, I’d rather have the dog. They always smell like the last food that passed through them, even if the guy says he cleans it all the time. And I don’t care if you’re the hottest guy in town with a beard – all I see is a rat poking its head through a bush. I know lots of girls find them sexy – just not me.)
I don’t know about your town, but mine has a lot of bearded men walking around, and it’s not even No-Shave-November. I don’t mean men with the closely-trimmed beards that are meant to accentuate the jawline or the 5-day stubble that looks rugged, even on your office IT guy. I’m talking about those squirrelly, nasty Duck Dynasty beards.
First, why is it always the guys who can’t grow a decent beard that always want to try this particular fashion? Seriously, play to your strengths – you look like you walked through a dark spider web. Just shave it and try something else.
For those who actually can produce a full Moses, we know that it’s probably false advertising.
I wouldn’t care about beards if there wasn’t so much hypocrisy around them. Men often have criticized women for wearing makeup (“What do you really look like under all that?” or “Why are you spackling your face?”), but beards are the male equivalent of concealer. Excessive beards hide a lot of flaws like acne, a weak chin, or Nixon jowels. ZZ Top beards can even hide the shape of a man’s face. You might think you’re getting a Brad Pitt jawline, when in fact there’s an Adrian Brody lurking beneath.
Another misleading face bush is the long, Gandalf chin beard – you know, the one that points like an arrow to the guy’s crotch (or beer belly). That thing is no different than dramatic eyeliner and lipstick that says “Look over here, and not at the zits on my forehead.”
And guys, we know it’s not because “it’s cold.” Judging by your prison pallor and baby soft hands, it appears many of you Hagrid wanna-bees work in offices, which means in climate-controlled environments. Unless you are an avid hunter, you can’t claim to need it to keep your face warm. Even if you live in Minnesota, the sprint from the car to your office does not warrant growing an entire sheep on your face. If you do, chances are your just going to have snotsicles hanging from it anyway, and that’s just gross.
And finally, as one of my girlfriends pointed out to me recently, kissing somebody with an untrimmed beard is like kissing a Wookie. Girls (or guys) if you’re a Star Wars fan with a Wookie fetish, put on your Princess Leia headphones and go for it.
So, bottom line is, if you’re going to clothe your face, go all the way. Do some beardazzling and make it fun. Throw some glitter in it, or some of those fancy beads middle-aged women love to wear. Go Viking and braid it, and add some silver and gold for interest. 
Just don’t grow a herpe curtain and think we’re not on to you.
Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Travel | Tags: Exercise, fitness, games, islands, jeff probst, lying, pop culture, reality television, relaity tv, relationships, sports, survivor, television, travel
I don’t know what it is about Americans in particular, but we seem to like watching TV shows that make sporting events out of activities other people do in their daily life. Off the top of my head, Survivor and American Ninja Warrior come to mind. American Ninja Warrior takes the obstacle courses military organizations used to use for training and makes it into a giant, high-tech jungle gym for middle-class gym rats. Americans play Survivor on islands where people actually scratch out a living every day – not just for 40 days and then are flown back to their AC and Netflix.
And I love both of those shows.
We still watch Survivor. I hate the people, and it makes me mad, but it’s a train wreck each season, and there’s been 38 seasons. It seems I’m compelled to watch adults relive 8th grade by lying, backstabbing, deciding as a group who’s undesirable, and seeking revenge later on as an outsider.
I like Survivor because it has contestants that can do all the things I can’t in prolonged, difficult social situations. Here are 9 reasons why I would never win survivor:
- Starting Fires: If I don’t have Fatwood from Plow and Hearth or a stack of old newspapers, I’m pretty useless. (Voted Off – Day 2)
- Food-shut downs, or “The Hangry’s:” Based on people’s reactions to my food shut-downs, I’m pretty sure I would be voted off in the first three days. Apparently, I become unreasonable and just a bit bitchy. They would probably require my one item I could bring to be a Snickers. There is no way I would voluntarily eat sugar-free food (i.e. rice) for 40 days straight without being one of those contestants that gets all listless and weepy (Voted Off – Day 3).
- Hot flashes in the Jungle: I always feel superior as I watch these skeletal twenty-somethings running around wearing teeny-weeny bikinis in the heat and humidity of whatever island they’re dropped on. I dare them to try that with a muffin top while having hot flashes. (Voted Off – Day 4)
- Compete without injury: I’ve got bad shoulders, bad hips and I throw like a chimp. Not exactly your desired anchor man in most competitions. That said, you need some swimming done? I’m your girl. (Voted Off – Day 6)
- Solve puzzles: Can’t. Never could. See this?
I’ve never been able to do it. Or this? 
I took those apart or smashed them, depending on my mood. I could proibably hide that deficit for a few days, but not the whole time. (Voted Off – Week 2) - Sunburn: I have an appointment this month to get more pieces of my face taken off (again). I’m pretty sure living on an island for month without sunscreen would hammer that last nail in my peaches-and-cream coffin. (Voted Off – Week 2)
- Think logically when tired: Let me put it this way – people at work know not to
give me anything after 3:00pm because my brain is tired. I’m pretty sure logical, chess-like thinking is not going to be my strong-suit after being sleep and sugar deprived. Also, I still can’t figure out how to put on one of those bra things that makes your straps into a racerback. (Voted Off – Week 3) - Maintaining the Lies: One time in the airport I was looking disapprovingly at a girl with a tramp stamp and a thong hanging way above her pants as she tied her shoe; two men were staring at me and laughing at my expression, not even paying attention to the thong. Apparently, my face does not hide my feelings as well as I thought. (Voted Off – Pick Any Day I Look At People)
- Razors: Seriously, people and after 40 days, people would run away from the Sasquatch that I have become. And the guys who wax their chests on the show? One of my favorite things ever is to watch it slowly grow back in on each episode. (Voted Off – Day 39)
So sorry, Jeff Probst. I’m only fodder for the first episode, where they winnow out the sick and old, like lions culling the weak water buffalo from the herd. But American Ninja Warrior – that’s another story. I’m going to get Hubby to build a Warp Wall so we can start practicing.
Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Sports | Tags: 40, fitness, Horses, vendor, vendor management
Most of them time, my brain and my body work together pretty seamlessly – but sometimes I wonder if that same body hasn’t become the worst third-party vendor ever. Especially in my 40’s.
I recently started horseback riding again – and by that, I mean flopping around on top of my daughter’s wonderful horse as I try to make muscle memory turn into actual muscle doing.
After hours and hours of watching her ride in lessons and horse shows, I have a pretty good mental idea of the mechanics of how it is done. And, I remember how to physically do some of it from when I used to ride as a kid – but now I have to outsource the job to my much older and out of shape body. As a third-party vendor, my current body’s still the cheapest (and only) option, but the relationship has begun to take a turn for the worse.
So, I Googled how to improve vendor performance:
First, Measure Performance – I do this every day, and sometimes I surprise myself with how well I (and my outsourced body) are doing; other days, I’m horrified. Take sleeping, for example. I used to be able to read for an hour and sleep through the night. Now I’m lucky if I can stay awake for two paragraphs and snore half the night. On the other hand, I can do sit-ups, push-ups and burpees, and like getting up at the crack of dawn because.
Measuring performance leads to: Listen to Your Vendor – “How often do you really have a two-way conversation with your vendors about their issues and the support they need to do a better job for you? Ok, so I just expect my body, er, vendor, to do what it was hired to do…but when my expectations are too high, or my body hasn’t had time to prepare (i.e. horseback riding), it does still try to find ways to meet my needs. The result – I rode for 20 minutes without falling off, but I couldn’t walk the next day. Perhaps my outsourced body would tell me that it needs more time in the gym, less bourbon and maybe a vitamin on occasion.
Establish a Service Level Agreement – There was never an agreement, although it appears that as I age, my body is beginning to make the rules around what is happening, instead of me.
Vendor: You’re going riding again? Fine, I’ll do it, but you don’t get to walk anywhere for two days.
Me: I think we need to revisit our agreement. I’m supposed to be in charge.
Vendor: I just made you pee a little.
Me: That’s not funny.
Vendor: That’s just the beginning. Go ahead – eat that crabmeat again – I dare you.
Establish Routines and Be Predictable – “It is much easier for vendors to better supply you when your ordering is predictable and consistent. Um, yeah, because life works like that. If I could be predictable, I would, but the best things in life usually aren’t in your routine…and if there’s a vendor cost for that, so be it. The 20-minute ride was worth it.
Subourbon Mom 