Skip to main content

The groaning, moaning, mumbling club

Another day passes when St. Louis gets a mild sprinkling of precipitation and the entire city shuts down - not that I'm hating on my snow day or anything. I'll be the first to admit the streets were a little slick this morning but watching the news reporters on TV this morning, you'd think this was the apocalypse. Let's just calm down here for a hot cold second. It's just snow. It happens every year, multiple times a year. If the mere forecast of the stuff brings panic, might I suggest moving to southern Florida? And the only people who really struggle are those who are dim witted enough to attempt to drive their Scions out right in the thick of it, and frankly they deserve to slide around a bit for buying a Scion in the first place.

Another thing is that everyone's snow anxiety would be eased if the rest of the world clued into what Colorado and Utah have known for years: Subaru.

A few months ago in Utah it had snowed 2 feet in 24 hours and it was still coming down thick enough to obscure the view of my car in the parking lot, which was about 50 feet away. My Utah best friend Kate drove 2 hours through a blizzard (most of which was through a canyon- which is a totally different ball game when it comes to snowstorms) in her faithful Subaru Cici to my apartment all in the name of beer. She picked me up and we joyfully drove all the way down to Epic Brewery in Salt Lake City and drank as the snow covered our car in the parking lot. With a Subaru and a couple of girls in need of a beer, anything is possible.

Nonetheless, I relished crawling back under the covers this morning at 6 am to sleep another 2 hours.

When I finally awoke from my slumber my mom and I hit up the gym, which I discovered with the utmost dismay is a completely different environment on a weekday around 11 than it is after 4. Between the hours of 11 and 1 is the time where the sighers, groaners, moaners, mumblers and mutterers choose to work out. Similar to the beginning of a trendy yoga class, everyone was just letting it out and letting it go.

Now, I'm not much of a noise maker in any situation. When I run I make it a point to breathe through my nose to slow my heart rate down. You will rarely see me exercising with my mouth wide open, mostly because I've accidentally swallowed about 5 too many bugs in my life but also because I just don't like the sound of my own respiration. I would rather fall off the back of a treadmill than huff and puff along a run. And when I lift weights, no matter how heavy, I never, ever brace my thoracic muscles to the point of exhaling louder than the air conditioning machine. It makes me unmeasurably uncomfortable when the big guys at the gym HUMPF! HHHRRAARRR!! HOOOOO!!! HAAAA! up weights as though they were lifting a baby elephant. Which is why 11-1 at the gym is the purest form of torture for a girl like me.

I had a man next to me on a bike that was either having a heart attack and failing to flag down an employee or enjoying the stationary bicycle to the point where his wife should be jealous. I thought several times to lean over and ask him quietly if he was okay, but I feared his reply would be something along the lines of, "never been better! *wink*"

After a few particularly loud, convincing moans and sighs - I couldn't take it. I left the bikes.

Upon heading to the weights and starting a tricep workout, I found a woman next to me who appeared to be talking on one of those awful tiny little ear clip cell phones that always throw me off. I can't tell you the number of times in college I was walking down Comm Ave and I found someone walking the opposite direction, looking directly at me, and talking. I fell for it every time. I would make eye contact, lean it, usually saying "what'd you say?" and stand there bewildered as the person dodged me at the last second, threw me a backward disgusted glance and swiftly walk away. Oh, you were talking to the tiny person hooked on your ear? Should've known. My fault.

The gym is a weird place to answer a phone call but I decided it wasn't on my list of gym 'no-nos' that equate to adultery. I was just starting to feel thankful from getting away from the happy bicycle man when she turned and I saw that there was no phone. The woman was just chattin' away with herself and apparently having a great conversation. Fearing I would be invited into the conversation, I headed to the yoga mats. Maybe today was an ab day.

And I found myself next to a sigher, which, in my opinion, is even worse than the moaner or the mumbler. Every movement was matched with a "hhaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh."

It was a secret society of 'free to be you and me' exercise enthusiasts. So if you're into such things and are looking for friends who are also into such things, head to the gym around noon during the week. I, however, will no longer be exercising before 4.


Time to wrap it up. The library just announced that due to the weather they will be closing at 5 because there is a chance of flurries this evening.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stop Shoulding all over yourself

Yesterday I went on Cor Jesu's Vivare "young alumni" retreat. My friend from high school Katie posted it on my wall a few weeks ago and tagged a couple other CJ sisters to the post and it struck my interest. I haven't done a single thing with CJ since I graduated and somewhere between moving to Boston and joining the triathlon team my Catholic past was put on the backburner. I figured I had nothing to lose except a Saturday and at the very least I'd get to hang out with my friends so I signed up and sent in my $25 without much thought.  I've never been the most devout Catholic. Most times in church I'm scanning the crowd for familiar faces, zoning out, and making Target lists- and that's if I go at all. Sunday is usually run-day...or ski day. Or sleep in day. Or study day. Or vacuum day. Whatever day it is...it's rarely church day. Despite being raised by two Catholic parents, going to a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school, going o...

A Near Miss

I may have spoken too soon when I said that Kirkwood library was my spot. Here I am comfortably doing my speech-pathology work when out of nowhere: We took the square route of this and put it here and here and put it there and there.  My ears tuned in and I raised my head. I sniffed the air and suspiciously scanned the area. Yep. Math. Immediately I broke out in a sweat. Hands started shaking. Eyes twitched. Jaw clenched and neck twisted. Vomit literally came up my esophagus. Pavlov conditioning in it's purest form.  So this times this gives you this and this times this gives you that.  Focus, Katie. Hmm....a 2 year old with hearing loss who is struggling with some final consonant deletion, some stopping of fricatives, some devoicing? Now that, I am good at.... Now do you see inside your parenthesis that there is a difference of squares? No I don't see, lady. That past is long behind me and I'm never going back.  Right now I'm transcribing, identifying ...
First mountain bike ride = SUCCESS! Rex and I rode 18 miles this morning. We did the Logan river trail for about 14 then we rode around town stopping into some bike shops looking at pedals and mountain biking shoes. It'll be a few weeks before I actually buy a pair but I want to get an idea of what's out there - just like road cycling, clipless pedals change everything. With regular pedals, the rider can only get movement forward by pushing down. With clipless pedals, the rider's foot is attached to the bike so you can push down and pull up, which makes climbing and accelerating completely different. I absolutely love my pedals on Mr. Mac so Rex should have a pair, too. The ride was awesome though. The thing I like about mountain biking is that it's a nice blend between trail running and road cycling. You get to the distance of cycling but you get to be close with nature like you do running. It's absolutely perfect. I even had my very first crash today! I w...