I’m thinking I need a hat. I have several as most people do. I have sun visors and sun hats and gimme baseball caps. I have knit ones and straw ones and once I even had a paper one. What has this to do with the pit? Today there were several women there wearing hats. Not just any hat, but baseball style with stuff on them. Sparkly stuff to be exact. These women had something I do not, and I’m not talking about the hat here, if you get my drift. One of them was on the step machine, not to be confused with the stair thing-a-ma-jiggy, and she was backwards. I assumed she did this on purpose and not because she didn’t know any better as she was, shall we say, physically fit, leading me to believe she knew her way around the place.
Then there's Workout Barbie on the treadmill. She's tuned into something on her iPod and going through some kind of choreographed routine that looked vaguely like cheerleading. Kick, kick, shimmy butt left, shimmy right, shake your pom poms, repeat. This wouldn’t have attracted much attention if she hadn’t been wearing shorts the size of a band aid, a camisole top and those perky little anklet socks with her color coordinated sneakers. Her sun streaked pony tail cascaded from the hat and swayed in tandem with the shaking going on below. I need one of those hats. I’m thinking the crystals on them channel energy waves that I need.
I’ve been brave this week, taking on some new workouts on the same ole machines. Today I started on the stair thing-a-ma-jiggy and tried out the fat burner setting. This is something like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but I managed twenty minutes on it, a testament to my increased endurance if nothing else. From my vantage point I can see the whole place. There are still plenty of resolutionists, easily detected by their lack of enthusiasm and confusion over how to turn the machines on – most require only that you start moving – and a large group of women who’s offspring are in the baby sitting area, and a whole slew of softball players. One of them is on the ¾ rack just in front of the stair thing-a-ma-jiggies and she and her friend are shaking their pony tails pretty good and talking the whole time. She’s wearing cute little Capri pants and a tank top over a sports bra. Nothing unusual- until she rolls the tank top up and tucks it into her bra, exposing her pre having children, not an ounce of fat, abdomen. The guy on the stairs behind her looks like he’s going to have and apoplexy, however, he recovers before we have to call the paramedics. I’m impressed.
The place is crowded, but I’m able to find a ¾ rack that is unoccupied and off I go. Feeling brave, or just oxygen deprived, I set it on fat burner and get going. I haven’t done this particular one on this setting before, but I kind of like it. It keeps flashing a big red heart at me. As a romance writer I find this rather endearing until I realize it wants me to grip the hand sensors so it can calculate my heart rate. I don’t need it to tell me it’s somewhere near ‘explode’, but I do it anyway. I was right and the machine flashes a slow down message which I know in my nearly ready to explode heart won’t do any good unless I stop completely. This is not an option as I know if I stop, I’m done. I keep going and smile at the pretty red heart.
I’m hoping that the influx of resolutionists will die out(figuratively of course) some in the next few weeks and the place won’t be so crowded, but in case it doesn’t I think I know what I can do. The girl on the ¾ rack gave me the idea. If I roll up my shirt and tuck it in I bet the place will clear out in no time. Or maybe they’ll just ask me to leave. Maybe I should think this through a little before I try it.
Daughter #1 is waiting for me to finish up, so I bid goodbye to the pretty red heart and we head out. As we push through the tinted glass doors a car drives up and discharges a passenger. The woman, a C-30 something is carrying her purse and a rolled up yoga mat. Before the car is past her toes she has her cigarette lit up and is blowing smoke that finds its way into my overtaxed lungs. I’m speechless, partly from lack of oxygen, partly from shock. This is SoCal. Smoking is prohibited just about everywhere except inside your own home, so this display has me shaking my head in wonder. Takes all kinds. Maybe she needs one of those special hats too.
This is probably the last blog for a while. I’m off on a cruise in a few days and as the ship has a pit too I plan to visit it a time or two. I’ll take notes and catch up with you when I get back. I should have a thing or two to say by then. Until we meet again….
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