I spend a lot of time with my friend JR and lil JR, her now two and a half year old. JR has achieved a level of patience with her young daughter that most people only dream of, meaning that she has yet to slap her silly or leave her in the wild for wolves to raise. Not that I am advocating either of these things, just that most of us, when faced with our own offspring, have contemplated one or two drastic measures. The truth is, for the most part, lil JR is not your typical two-year-old. She is fun to play with, and she goes to sleep early, and she doesn’t cry much, so what’s not to like? Last week, however, on her day home, she channeled her inner Linda Blair.
I had an eye appointment in the morning, and JR offered to tote my ass around since my pupils were dilated, leaving me with a level of blindness that way surpasses my late night stumbles to the bathroom in the dark. I am not just a little blind, I am as a bat, white cane and seeing-eye dog blind without my contacts. And for those of you familiar with the joys of eye dilation, contact wearing isn’t really an option on dinner plate pupils. I had to resort to wearing my five year old glasses, which is barely a step up from nothing. JR met me at the doctor’s office, where I was feeling my way towards the exit. We looked at eyeglass frames for a little while lil JR entertained herself with a calculator. JR asked her if she needed to go potty before we left, and lil JR answered, “No, I already went in my dress.” Indeed she had, in her dress, tights and all. JR hustled her quietly out of the office while I checked out, and we rendezvoused in the parking lot. After lil JR was re-panted, we ran a few errands.
The first stop was Babies R US, where JR and I needed to get a baby gift for a shower. Lil JR wandered off every five seconds, which meant we couldn't really look at anything because we were searching for the toddler the whole time. It was kind of like losing my husband at IKEA, only more frustrating since my husband is quite tall and lil JR is built like a garden gnome. JR coerced her daughter into sitting in the cart to look at a toy she wasn't going to get, and then tried to lead me around to find gifts. I couldn’t see the merchandise and I couldn’t read the baby registry, so I thought at least I could be helpful by pushing the cart. Only any time I got near lil JR, she would shout "NO!" at me and push me away. Normally, lil JR is a big fan of mine, and honestly, the feeling is mutual. But with JR trying to help me, lil JR turned against us both in a bid for power. We hastily made a few selections off the registry and got the hell out of there.
After fighting over who could open the car door for lil JR, who could assist her into her car seat, and who could hand her a much needed sandwich, we decided to head back to JR’s house to eat. Frankly, I didn’t want to risk a public lunch. I figured if lil JR was going to be a lil shit, she could do it in her own home. JR drove while I sat quietly next to her like Stevie Wonder in the passenger seat. Lil JR whined in the back seat because she was starving, even though it was only 11:30 and she had already eaten an egg, toast, cereal, part of a turkey sandwich, a fruit leather, and some other things she found in her lunch box. She really wanted an orange, which she told us by screaming, “Orange! Orange!” at us over and over. JR calmly informed her that we had no oranges. It wasn’t that lil JR didn’t understand that JR had no oranges, it was that she didn’t care.
After fighting over who could sit where at the table, the rest of the turkey sandwich, and whether I was allowed to use their restroom, which I was not, lil JR mellowed out for a while and relaxed into her usual pleasant self. We played an extremely entertaining game where lil JR beams a plastic ball at our heads, then jumps up and down on a mattress on the floor before falling on her belly, at which point JR or I would beam the ball back at her, whereupon she would stand up, work her way to the edge of the mattress, and then practice jumping four inches from the mattress to the floor using both feet at the same time. After a morning full of her tyranny, I was happy throwing a ball at her ass.
Alas, all good things must come to an end, and the jumping ball game was no exception. JR and I decided to kill one last half an hour at the park before I had to get my car from the eye doctor’s and drive home to deal with my own children. My pupils were attempting to return to normal, no longer fully dilated but now just lopsided like I suffered a concussion, which meant I could see to drive and check homework but maybe not make big decisions like buy a house.
Anyway, we hustled lil JR back in her car seat with the promise of using her scooter at the park and drove in that general direction. We talked and laughed in the front seat, but lil JR wanted to be the center of attention, and soon the scolding began again. “You no talk! I talk! I serious! You no laugh. My turn. We take turns. My turn talk! Not you!” She did the best she could communicating her desire to control the conversation without using proper grammar or complete sentences. I felt like I was getting chewed out by my nail technician, minus the Vietnamese accent. JR and I stopped talking so that lil JR could speak her piece, which honestly, I don’t remember. Two year olds are not the best conversationalists.
We got to the park and put lil JR in her knee pads and helmet so she could tool around on her scooter. She has mad scooter skills. She can even lift her foot up in the back and coast down a hill, even though it scares the dunkel out of her. I thought I was watching the Pre-X games. JR and I walked behind her like proud lesbian parents, a day at the park with my two moms. Lil JR didn’t much care for the hills, or the idea of leaving her helmet on while she walked up them, allowing one of us to carry the scooter for her while she whined about her helmet. We walked over to the playground and stood around while lil JR climbed to the top to slide down over and over. JR gave her the countdown which was ignored, until finally JR had to carry her screaming and crying out of the park. We had barely turned out of the parking lot before lil JR was snoring away in her car seat. Nothing is more exhausting than making a couple of grownups submit to your will.
All in all, being blind and at the mercy of a two year old is a pretty surreal way to spend a day. For JR, it was validating because she got to help me in my time of need and also because she had company for her day alone with her daughter, the longest day of the week. For lil JR, it was like every other day, a reason to challenge and push and resist. For me, well, luckily my eyes are only dilated every other year.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Miss Cue
Some people prefer to do their own work outs at the gym, but others, like me, enjoy the camaraderie of group fitness. An exercise class has an element of built in motivation, a slight sense of competition, and the added bonus of not having to think. You show up and follow an instructor who leads you through choreographed moves or intervals or positions, depending on the class, and if you are mildly coordinated and know your left from your right, you can get a pretty good workout. Of course, if you are a frequent gym class attendee, you start to know what to expect and can concentrate on other things, like what the instructors actually say to you. It keeps your mind from wandering away to your to-do list and the fight you had with your husband over breakfast. I like to pay attention because sometimes, like children, those cute little gym instructors say the darndest things.
Some classes just naturally lend themselves to better wording from the instructors than others. Take spin, for example. Cues in spin class (a stationary biking class for those of you who live under a rock) sounds dirty without trying. You’re up, you’re down, you are in the saddle, you are in different positions, you are climbing and sprinting and running and yes, by all, means, sit down and have some water, you've earned it. Sometimes you isolate, take out the bounce, and have your ass brush against the seat. Sometimes you have your arms out but your body is pulled back, with all the weight in your gluts. Your chest is up, your ass is out, and your genitals are barely making contact with the saddle, the music is loud, the room is dark. It’s like a rave in there, only without the Ecstasy.
One of my favorite instructors used to cue his class in ways that would make me giggle to myself. Instead of telling us to pull back, he would say pull out. He also would like to yell at the class, “Harder, faster! Push it hard!” and then he would grunt and moan in ways that didn’t sound like he was exercising or taking a shit. When my friend MJ and I would go to spin class together, we would snicker to each other the whole time about the things that flew out of the instructor’s mouth. Finally, one day after class, he asked us what was so funny. MJ told him that I thought everything he said in class could just as easily be said in bed. Which was pretty much the last time I ever heard him say anything remotely suggestive on the spin bike.
Pilates class is by far the best place to hear things that can be misconstrued as dirty talk. Pilates is mostly about lengthening your muscles, but it’s also about using and strengthening your core. By core, they mean your lower abdominal muscles, the ones that lost their tone about the time you took off your wedding attire. Sometimes the instructors use food cues to help you remember to contract your muscles. Pretend you are moving your arms through thick brownie batter. Pretend you are balancing a hot cup of coffee on your pubic bone. Pretend someone is dripping hot wax on your nipples. I never heard them say that last one, but it’s only a matter of time.
We used to have a Pilates instructor who referred to the perineum as the perrenium,pronounced like perennials, as if we were all planting flowers in our crotches. She was also fond of having us open our legs wide while balancing on our ass cheeks, and then she would say, "Ta da!" Last week, our instructor had us on our sides, opening and closing our thighs, and told us to “Clam it.” I ask you, how do you not laugh at that? We have another instructor who likes to use props, you know, to keep the magic alive. She brings balls with her, which we have to squeeze between our knees, or grip with our ankles, or firmly grasp in our hands. I love a class with balls. I never grow tired of laughing at the word “ball,” even in front of a group of strangers. Ball days are the best.
One instructor takes her class (and herself) very seriously, talking throughout the hour with an endless tirade on our form and weaknesses. My friend SZ and I once tried to count how many times she said "butt cheeks" over the sixty minutes. We lost count. The same teacher just came back from a Pilates conference with the best cue ever, really the final word on cues. She told us to “close our holes.” Do it right now. See? You know exactly what that means, and it’s even funnier than balls.
And if you close your holes, it makes you wonder what exactly you are trying to strengthen. I’m going with the bladder, because there is nothing more embarrassing at the gym than laughing so hard that you piss yourself.
Some classes just naturally lend themselves to better wording from the instructors than others. Take spin, for example. Cues in spin class (a stationary biking class for those of you who live under a rock) sounds dirty without trying. You’re up, you’re down, you are in the saddle, you are in different positions, you are climbing and sprinting and running and yes, by all, means, sit down and have some water, you've earned it. Sometimes you isolate, take out the bounce, and have your ass brush against the seat. Sometimes you have your arms out but your body is pulled back, with all the weight in your gluts. Your chest is up, your ass is out, and your genitals are barely making contact with the saddle, the music is loud, the room is dark. It’s like a rave in there, only without the Ecstasy.
One of my favorite instructors used to cue his class in ways that would make me giggle to myself. Instead of telling us to pull back, he would say pull out. He also would like to yell at the class, “Harder, faster! Push it hard!” and then he would grunt and moan in ways that didn’t sound like he was exercising or taking a shit. When my friend MJ and I would go to spin class together, we would snicker to each other the whole time about the things that flew out of the instructor’s mouth. Finally, one day after class, he asked us what was so funny. MJ told him that I thought everything he said in class could just as easily be said in bed. Which was pretty much the last time I ever heard him say anything remotely suggestive on the spin bike.
Pilates class is by far the best place to hear things that can be misconstrued as dirty talk. Pilates is mostly about lengthening your muscles, but it’s also about using and strengthening your core. By core, they mean your lower abdominal muscles, the ones that lost their tone about the time you took off your wedding attire. Sometimes the instructors use food cues to help you remember to contract your muscles. Pretend you are moving your arms through thick brownie batter. Pretend you are balancing a hot cup of coffee on your pubic bone. Pretend someone is dripping hot wax on your nipples. I never heard them say that last one, but it’s only a matter of time.
We used to have a Pilates instructor who referred to the perineum as the perrenium,pronounced like perennials, as if we were all planting flowers in our crotches. She was also fond of having us open our legs wide while balancing on our ass cheeks, and then she would say, "Ta da!" Last week, our instructor had us on our sides, opening and closing our thighs, and told us to “Clam it.” I ask you, how do you not laugh at that? We have another instructor who likes to use props, you know, to keep the magic alive. She brings balls with her, which we have to squeeze between our knees, or grip with our ankles, or firmly grasp in our hands. I love a class with balls. I never grow tired of laughing at the word “ball,” even in front of a group of strangers. Ball days are the best.
One instructor takes her class (and herself) very seriously, talking throughout the hour with an endless tirade on our form and weaknesses. My friend SZ and I once tried to count how many times she said "butt cheeks" over the sixty minutes. We lost count. The same teacher just came back from a Pilates conference with the best cue ever, really the final word on cues. She told us to “close our holes.” Do it right now. See? You know exactly what that means, and it’s even funnier than balls.
And if you close your holes, it makes you wonder what exactly you are trying to strengthen. I’m going with the bladder, because there is nothing more embarrassing at the gym than laughing so hard that you piss yourself.
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