Month: September 2000

Sob. I hurt. I hurt from my toes, where I have a nasty, painful-looking blister on my little bitty piggy toe (right foot) to my calves and shins and all the way to my butt, where every muscle is screaming for mercy. Why?, you ask. Why are you in such pain, Robyn? Why, oh why? Because, dear readers, I got cocky. For something like two months now, I’ve been doing the WalkAerobics tapes from hell, led by Satan McCruel herself, Leslie Sansone. At the end of each exercise session with Leslie, I would be dripping sweat and proud of myself. "I’m kicking ass!" I would inform myself proudly. "I’m a WalkAerobics ass-kickin’ fool!" Two months, five days a week is an awfully long time to spend with one exercise guru, though, and as I was at the end of mile 2 on Tuesday, as Leslie perkily proclaimed that mile 3 was coming up, I suddenly became aware that if I had to look at her perky, happy, laughing fucking face ("We’re gonna let Jo lead, ’cause she used to be A BALLERINA OR SOMETHIN’!" she shrieks gleefully in mile 3, and I hear that "OR SOMETHING’!" in my nightmares, people) for one more instant, I would cross that thin line between Well and Unwell that I am so fond of straddling, and I would grab Spanky who was making his rounds of the house, howling mournfully at the walls for no apparent reason, and I would make him into a hat, and Tubby into a matching skirt, and perhaps Mr. Fancypants into a kicky pair of fancy gloves, and I would attach a collar and leash to Miz Poo, and I would parade around the front yard, smiling and waving at everyone who went by until the men in the white coats came to carry me away, and I would spend the rest of my natural life on the Psych ward in a small scary Southern town named something like Muscle Shoals or Tuscaloosa. In other words, Leslie was beginning to bore me. But that’s okay! That’s fine! I thought to myself. Am I not an ass-kicking WalkAerobics diva? Am I not? I certainly am! Therefore, I did what any self-respecting WalkAerobics diva would do when, say, the vcr is broken or looking at Leslie’s VERY FUCKING HAPPY face for one more instant makes them want to drive to Pennsylvania and hunt her down and bellow "OR SOMETHIN’!" over and over into her ear until she’s screaming and not at all happy and sobbing like a little girl. In other words, I decided to taking my walking self outside, where I would walk quickly to the end of the street and back (a distance of 1.2 miles) a couple of times. No sweat, not for the WalkAerobics diva, not a care in the world. Well, maybe one care in the world – what if it wasn’t much of a workout? I decided, then, that I would walk in one direction for 15 minutes, and then turn around and walk home, which – in theory at least – would make a half-hour walk. And if I still didn’t think I’d exercised enough, why, I’d just do some calisthenics or pop in that Advanced Tae Bo tape. At exactly 8:00 am, after a quick warmup, with my sneakers on my feet, my walkman tucked into my shirt pocket, and my watch on my wrist, I set out for my walk. It was a lovely, overcast day, with enough of a breeze to keep it a tad cool. How I enjoyed walking. Lawdy, I thought to myself after a long while, It must be juuuust about time to turn around. I have an excellent sense of time, you know, and if it felt like 15 minutes had passed, I was pretty sure it was so. But I’d brought the watch for a reason, and so I double-checked myself. To my dismay, it had only been five minutes. Apparently, time slows down when you’re walking, and no one bothered to tell me. A moment later, I felt a somewhat stabbing sensation in my shins, and afraid I’d been attacked by killer bees, I let out a high-pitched scream and did a mid-air leap, then bent over to inspect my shins, which were killer bee free. I blushed slightly and shot a dirty look at the gentleman sitting in his lawnchair in the middle of his driveway, who was laughing and pointing at me. I reached the end of the street exactly twelve minutes after leaving the house. I stood at the end of the sidewalk, looking across the busy road located there, gasping for air and wiping the sweat from my face, trying to loosen up my suddenly tight calf and thigh muscles, while trying to look as though I were simply standing there contemplating the mysteries of the universe. I decided, instead of crossing that busy road to go another three minutes down that road, only to turn around and come back, I’d head for home, and take a side street or two to stretch out the trip a bit. Thirty-five minutes after leaving the house, I was rounding the corner and heading up the small hill in front of my house. My right piggy toe was throbbing, and I could feel the blister growing by the moment. I stumbled into the garage and through the door, to be met by the very concerned Miz Poo and Spanky. I collapsed on the couch and may have even passed out for a few minutes. As yesterday went on, my muscles began throbbing. It started with my shins and went to my calves, and then up my body. This morning, I attempted a stretch and almost screamed when the muscles in my ass sent out a stabbing pain. Did I learn my lesson? Hell, no. I went out and did it all over again today.
—–]]>

David Crockett State Park. It was pretty nice, and of course I took as many pictures as I could before the battery ran out (the downside of taking off on the spur of the moment is that I didn’t have a chance to recharge the battery before we left).
We always stop at this little country store, because they have awesome fried pies, and occasionally sell the best jam in existence (made by one Mervin Mast and family). We bought a jar of jam, but passed on the fried pies this time.
That would be the sign out in front of the country store. Exciting, yes?
Cool corn-husk piles. They look like they’re just begging to be bonfires, but according to Fred, they use them to feed their horses "or somethin’."
Fred was just obsessed with these yellow wildflowers, and they were everywhere. Kind of like my kudzu obsession, I guess. He made me take several pictures of them.
More flowers.
They hang signs out by their mailboxes advertising what they’re selling. This family was apparently selling "sweet potates". (That’s right, Robyn, go for the low blow!)
Another sign (duh).
The last of the flower pictures.
An Amish house. That’s not their car in the driveway, though (which you probably already figured).
We stopped here to get a bag of okra, but Piggy McTakeItAll (the non-Amish person in this picture) took the last of the okra, just before Fred got there. Hmph. Is that a cute kid, or what? Another shot of the same people, though this one isn’t through the windshield. Fred got out of the car and hissed "Don’t be all obvious!", and ordered me to get a picture. Now, it’s a BIG-ASS camera, and you HAVE to hold it up to a certain height to look at the screen. How freakin’ subtle can you be? The kid saw me take both pictures, but the mother was oblivious. Fred said he was afraid they’d think the camera would steal their soul. Hee!
Fred and the spud, walking to the door of another Amish house, this time to buy tomatoes (and excellent tomatoes they were). Won’t Fred be pleased that I’m posting a picture of his butt on my page! This little cutie was skipping from the barn to her house, and I managed to catch her in mid-skip. The family living in this house had around seven kids already, and the mother was pregnant with another.
As Fred was turning the Jeep around, he hissed "Take a picture of these kids! Take it quick!" The other three kids who had been standing there took off, but I got this one. Look, it’s hard to focus and snap the pic when someone’s snarling at you to hurry up! There were lots of carriages heading our way as we left Amish country to go get lunch. I would have snapped a picture at the state park, but I was out of battery power. That was our Saturday. Sunday and Monday were spent doing laundry, laying around the house, reading, and watching movie after movie. You know, the usual non-stop stuff!
—–]]>