It happens. I don’t take offense. That was the last thing on my mind on Wednesday night. I was thinking about the next 40 days and what if anything I was supposed to give up in “self-sacrifice”. Although since my dad’s passing, I’ve been in an argument with God, but I don’t know if He’s aware. I’ve been like Lieutenant Dan from Forest Gump, when he’s on the boat and it’s about to get hit by the hurricane. 

Anyhow, in my Lieutenant-Dan state I went to get my cenizas trying to think of something to “give up” the next 40 days. But giving up stuff has never helped my devotion, penitence, or faith. Instead I was thinking of giving to…as in giving people breaks, giving random strangers acts of kindness such as waving in hostile drivers so that they can merge into the lane. Being that chick that holds the door open at the 7-11 for the person behind me. Basically trying to be one of the characters in that Liberty Mutual commercial, a regular paying-it-forward cycle.

Image via Wikipedia

Just as I was pondering my list, I looked up and there he was, wearing his dark gray stylish jacket, burgundy scarf, and dark brown rimmed glasses. Andy Garcia. He made his way toward me and I paused. I didn’t know whether to approach him, ask him about any jobs, slip him some of my stories or scripts. We were in church. I wasn’t sure how to approach a celebrity in a holy-leave-me-alone-I’m-talking-to-God place. I mean he was in The Untouchables, Ocean’s Eleven, and Ocean’s Twelve. Granted he was in the Godfather III, but it was the third one and truth is that one sucked. I stood there thinking. Then he looked at me and walked right by me on his way to receive Communion. I thought maybe when he comes back around on the way for cenizas, I can talk to him. I couldn’t concentrate on God or cenizas, as I was trying to work up the nerve to approach him.

He hadn’t been in any movies lately and the only thing I recently saw him in was an independent movie I rented on Netflix. City Island, which incidentally was pretty good. So I waited, trying to think of what to say. But he never came back. 

So I stood there … thinking of my almost-Andy Garcia moment.  I felt kind of let down, then I thought…could’ve been worse…could’ve been Robert Redford or Robert De Niro. But if it was any of those Roberts, I think I would have jumped over Mr. Businessman and Gangster and crawled over a couple of pews. They probably would have been on the Liberty-Mutual-help-a-stranger-40-days of Lent plan, too.

You never know.

Are you down?

I dare you.

What?

I dare you!

I’m down. Are you down?

Well, I’m down, if you’re down.

I’m down, if she’s down.

If she’s down, he’s down.

I’m down. We’re down! Let’s go. Let’s get in line. We’re down.

www.warriordash.com

There was no climbing in my neighborhood unless it was over a fence and even then it had to be for a good reason i.e. ditching school, running away from a suspect element, or getting the last baseball that got grand-slammed over the neighbor’s house, a regular Sandlot moment. But see these were vertical climbs.

Leave it to The Warrior Dash to have something called The Horizontal Hike, where I am supposed to ”voyage over an arching obstruction”. Arching obstruction concerns me. Have you seen these geodomes in kiddie playgrounds? I was never one to climb those things. I was more of a baseball diamond chick, hoops b-baller lady, and volleyball Karch Kiraly/Sinjin Smith chica. I had no time to be falling through holes in playground climbing equipment. I fell on the field, much more dignified and athletic like.

I rock climbed a few times. I get a good grip, but once again — vertical. And incidentally it’s attached to a rock — a piece of Earth – and you’re attached to a harness and rope. Geodomes … no rock. No climbing equipment. Just a man-made wobbly structure made of metal, where I imagine if you slip, it might be painful. Metal, like wood, hurts and knowing my track record for being gravity challenged, I might need some ice packs and Ben Gay on demand.

But you never know, I could crawl over this thing like Spiderman and move on unscathed. It could happen. I got the power of positive thinking and visualization. It happens to golfers all the time. I just have to use this mentality while I’m out of breath, tired, weak-kneed, dripping of sweat, nervous, and prepared to “voyage” over an obstruction. Although adding some more push-ups to my workout couldn’t hurt.

Definitely possible. Dude … I’m an athlete. I drink Gatorade.

I found a couple of inspirational quotes most of them being from people like Tony Robbins, Joel Osteen, Dale Carnegie, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Winston Churchill. Churchill … I didn’t realize he was badass. I guess you would have to be in order to be the Prime Minister of a country. My all time favorite: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

I thought dude … what up brother from another mother. I forgot about that one. I usually have that magnet posted on my fridge, but considering that I don’t have a fridge right now, my magnets are in the closet. Winston, you read my mind.  So I smiled and forged ahead.

Then I came across a list of what I thought were inspirational movies to watch … underdogs. You know fictional people or based-on-a-true-story people living a crappy life and then turning it around like the Pursuit of Happiness, October Sky, and Shawshank Redemption. I wasn’t a homeless unemployed single parent, although I could be. I wasn’t living in a small miner town getting my dream squashed, although dream squashing runs rampant over here. And I wasn’t falsely imprisoned forced to cook the books for the warden. Yeah … no prison time here. I thought … well I guess things could be worse. But they all made it, despite their crappy existences. I thought, I love these movies … this is what I am. I am the underdog lover.

I wish for a better existence, which is why I probably had the meltdown. Maybe wives and mothers with two kids that have a nanny, chef, personal shopper, and cleaning lady don’t have meltdowns, if they do it’s probably over their dry cleaning not being ready on time.  I wish I had dry cleaning to drop off, but then maybe my life wouldn’t be as funny. Underdogs … we’re a bad-ass species. Funny too.

So I realized I was grateful for underdog stories.

Cucarachas. Have you met these bastards?

Photo credit: Raid.com

Ugh.

I’m no stranger to them. I grew up in an apartment building in the inner city. They’d travel from place to place. We’re familiar with Raid. Fogger. Fumigator. Large Baits. But I thought I was beyond that. Moving on up. But apparently not.

I was visiting a friend the other day and it was time for the baby’s nap. So my friend suggested I put the baby in the master bed. I thought sure, why not? About an hour later I heard the baby wake up. I went to the bedroom and picked up the baby. As I put my friend’s fluffy pillows back on the headboard I saw it.  There it was hanging out on the corner of the mattress, wreaking havoc with its antenna and brown presence.

Ugh.

Freaked…me…out. I was so grossed out. By the time I regained my composure and thought of taking off my sneakers and whacking it, it had crawled back to wherever it came from.

When I walked out of the bedroom, I told my friend we had to leave. She was a little surprised, but I wasn’t going to tell her, “Hey you got cucarachas and they almost crawled all over my kid.” I figure she’d be embarrassed, and then I’d feel bad. I know she’s a clean person. She’s got the Comet, Clorox, and Mr. Clean to prove it, but I just had to leave. I remembered this story my cousin told me about an emergency room visit and every time I see these roaches I remember the incident.

Apparently he was doing some sort of construction in the garage one evening, when he nearly sawed off his finger. He rushed over to the ER and sat there bleeding away until they called his number. As he was waiting he ran into one of his old high school flames. Apparently they ended on good terms because when he recognized her she said hello, he said hello, and they got to talking. They had some old-time laughs.

So then he asked her if she was waiting for someone because she wasn’t bleeding or looked to be in severe pain. She turned red and put her head down. She told him that she was pretty embarrassed about the situation. He said it wasn’t a big deal if she didn’t want to share, but thought he’d ask. So I guess she finally gave in and said:

“I’m here because a cockroach crawled into my ear.”

Dude.

I would’ve needed a serious dose of vallum to keep me from screaming in that waiting room.

So, any time I see cucarachas I think of my cousin’s old flame. The fact that the cucaracha might have been crawling anywhere near my kid or her ear had me rushing for the exit. I didn’t want to be that chick in the ER with a creeper crawler in her kid’s ear.

Image via Wikipedia

Anyhow I explained to her that there were two types of work-outs: the gym and the Great Outdoors. Since I am economically challenged at the moment, I exercise surrounded by mother nature. If I was at the gym I would probably use some sort of musical device MP3 player, iPod, Walkman maybe. If you can believe it, I still have one. But since I workout outdoors, it is a non issue.

She asks whether or not I get tired faster with no music, whether my energy level trickles down to low.

There are three reasons why I can’t work out with music. One: crazy slasher Jack-the-Ripper attackers. As I mentioned before I grew up in a tough inner-city neighborhood and whether you’re on the sidewalk or on the track you don’t want music blasting in your ears. I need to be aware of my surroundings and can’t have some pervert sneaking up on me. I’ve got to have all my senses on alert day or night. Especially if I decide to go hiking. Someone can come from behind and just throw me off the cliff and be off with my merengue playlist. Or if I do get attacked I might end up killing the dude with my Hapkido skills and then I get arrested. Not cool.

Second: I’m doing the Warrior Dash. There’s mud and murky waters involved. That music device will drown. And on top of that I’ll need to stay focused as all my energy will be directed to keeping my balance throughout many obstacles. I can’t concentrate while JJ Fad‘s Supersonic or Slick Rick‘s Children’s Story is blasting in my ear. I’m the kind of person who has to lower the volume on the radio when I’m parking into a tight spot. Concentration is essential, especially for this race.

Third: I’ve got the music in me…sometimes a little bit too much. It’s dangerous. One minute I’m sprinting down the field, the next I’m dancing like Bruno Mars at the Grammys. I got the old school in me. I got funk. I got merengue. I got cumbias … La Sonora Dinamita … watch out. I hear the trumpets, the tambores, the timbales, guacharaca, and then … that cow bell. It’s on. My New Balance shoes stop running and my hips start to swivel. I’m like a washing machine swishing myself down the track. There’s no running. The power of Capullo y Sorullo and Mi Cucu put an end to that. There’s arm pumping, hip swaying, fine footwork, the shoulder shimmy and sweet spin moves. I tried running two miles with music and instead I danced my way around 800 meters. It’s like I was  performing on Sabado Gigante.

So needless to say at the moment I need to stay focused. If it was a triathlon … maybe I’d consider music, but this Warrior Dash is serious. Sometimes I’ve just got too much rhythm.

Giddy up!

You have one of those days … everyone does. It starts at 4:40 a.m. when your kid wakes you up and it ends at 9:00 p.m when both kids, one of which posts a fever of 101 all day, finally go down.

You’re exhausted.

You’ve had to do it solo because your other half is conveniently stuck in traffic for the fourth night in row. You think … dude take a different route. You handled the multiple personalities that come with kid sickness. You’ve worked the mother marathon and got the backache to prove it.

Ibuprofen…what up?

You feel drained and just when you think there’s no more juice in the lemon, the writer rejection comes in and sucks it dry. Add a little mom commentary to the mix and the lemon gets smashed by a steamroller leaving little lemon zest scattered on the sidewalk. You feel rejected, dejected, deflated. You are not Superwoman. You’re not even Wonder Woman. You need Tony Robbins, because nothing is gonna pull you out of this funk. So you wallow in it for the rest of the night. Just feel bad. Everyone has a right to feel crappy one night … but just one. Drown in it and then wake up the next day, try to think of something you’re grateful for, and walk it off.

You try your punching bag for about ten minutes, but that doesn’t work.

Photo Credit: Breyers.com

So you head to the freezer, open it, and see the gallon just sitting there … why not? The Titanic has claimed this night, might as well go down with the ship accompanied by chocolate. You open the cabinets and look for a bowl. A big one.

You plop yourself on the couch and thirty minutes later it’s gone. Granted it wasn’t completely full to begin with, but nevertheless you ate the whole tub. But you feel like Forrest Gump when he sits next to Jenny after she throws multiple stones at her rundown childhood home. He says “… Sometimes there’s just not enough rocks.”

Yeah sometimes there’s just not enough rocky road to turn the night around.

So you go back to the freezer and pull out a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream.

That should do it.

Most definitely.

Giddy up!

Fat Cat Inc. -- The Cat Burglar

Just throw it in the trash?

Dude.

Times were tough back then…they still are. So I wrote one of my letters in hopes for a coupon or something. But these Fat Cat Inc. Toy People stepped it up a notch….

Dear Fat Cat Inc,

Honestly, I was cracking up in aisle four of PetCo when I saw the Cat Burglar. It reminded of a cartoon character you would have seen on Looney Tunes or something. So I just had to have it!  I knew my dog would love it. She’s funny, like me.

Pinta, my wonderful, clumsy, zany, and beautiful Dalmatian enjoyed it so much on the first day (literally the first couple of hours) that his limbs had been severed and were later found under her doggie bed. A CSI investigation found his right leg a few feet away, next to the KONG rubber toy.

Triple stitching??? Your description says triple stitching and heavy-duty canvas. Are you sure about that? Because the Cat Burglar’s “maximum flop ability” was tested, and he failed miserably. We tried to fix him STAT! But alas, Pinta’s enthusiasm for the Cat Burglar was better than my novice sewing skills. I mean really, who sews now a days? Don’t you just ask mom or grandma? Or take it to the dry cleaners?

Anyhow she squeaked the life out of it and enjoyed doing so. It was just too bad that she didn’t get pleasure from it long enough. She didn’t have toys before we got her and maybe that’s why she was so excited to get one, which resulted in the Cat Burglar’s demise. You know she was like that kid in your building…the one that never gets any toys and then he finds an old discarded Happy Meal with the toy still in it and he’s on top of the world. That was Pinta.

She’d been rescued from the pound. But we’ve known her since she was a puppy. Confused? Let me explain.

You see, my husband’s had her since birth and since he lived with his parents prior to our nuptials Pinta was staying over there. But  once we tied the knot, he moved out, leaving her behind. We wanted to get settled and thought it would only take about two weeks to get everything organized before we could bring her to live with us.

My church going in-laws had a different opinion. Apparently they felt the need to drop Pinta off at the pound without informing us. They felt that their house, which had a front and back yard was not big enough for her. Apparently they felt the need to get chickens. Chickens in the inner city…Well because of these inner-city chickens, our dog had been imprisoned like a felon and I had to drive down to the other side of town to bail her out. I felt horrified and mortified.

I drove down there and found her in a cell about the same size as our coffee table, sharing her space with a smelly, filthy, white fuzzy dog. I told the officer dog guy that’s her. That’s my dog.

 The embarrassing part was that I could not tell the Dog Pound People that she was originally my dog. Apparently if we adopted her it would only cost eighty something dollars, but if we said we were the owners and wanted her back, we would have to shell out one-hundred and thirty-six bucks. Punishment I guess for abandonment. But since I was innocent I felt the need to pay the lesser fine.

So there I was trying my best to pretend I didn’t know Pinta, meanwhile there she was smiling and wagging her tail. The sheriff or Dog police was pretty amusing. He said he had never seen this dog take to anybody the way she did with me, but that I had to be careful because they didn’t have any background information on her. She was just dropped off. Owner Surrender is what her file said.

What’s worse was that I was considered a “hero” for adopting a dog. They take pictures of these heroes. I tried to evade the Kodak moment he was so insistent upon, but the dog police guy caught me when I returned for my change. So now my Polaroid is pinned up with about forty others. The heading on the billboard reads: “We Thank Our Proud New Owners … Heroes”.

Pinta’s a great dog that’s been through so much, it surprises me that she doesn’t need Zoloft, but with toys like these she probably won’t need it. The only bad part is that they are a bit pricey and we can’t always afford to get her one, but it seems that out of all of her toys the Cat Burglar was her favorite. She still carries his beat-up ragged body (now just a piece of tattered cloth) out to play. I can assure you that she truly enjoyed the toy, but we were saddened at its 24-hour existence. If only Jack Bauer were here … but since he’s not we’ll have to save our pennies and see what we can come up with in the future. That is unless you can help us with a Fat Cat Inc replacement toy or coupon to ease Pinta’s withdrawals. She’s in need of another Fat Cat Inc. fix.

Sincerely…

About a month later we received something similar to The Incredible Strapping Yankers Dog Toy.

Fat Cat Inc. Toys

It was just as awesome. Not as funny as the Cat Burglar, but awesome just the same.

Pinta slept with it.

Ugh ...

Regret.

I regret making a left and not a right.

I regret not being able to take the side streets.

I regret not leaving 15 minutes earlier.

I regret changing lanes and thinking this one would be faster.

I regret not fixing my radio antenna.

I regret not packing a bottle for my baby who’s about to lose it.

I regret not having chocolate in the car.

I regret not being part of the Jetsons family so I could fly over this.

Regret.

What is that?

Ugh.

I completely understand if you send me hate mail. But just don’t get crazy.

www.warriordash.com

In all this training and muscle pumping for The Warrior Dash, it didn’t even occur to me that I’d be losing weight. It was an unexpected side effect, like hair loss. But apparently this side effect is good for your health. I didn’t plan on it, but there it was … ten pounds lighter and counting. My face is slender, my arms are sculpted, and my legs are toned. But if it makes you feel better my pants are still tight and my stomach muscles do not resemble a six-pack at all.

I didn’t think of my workouts as weight-loss workouts but more of don’t-fall-on-your-face-at-the-race workouts – conditioning so that I’d outrun the sixty-year old Ironman chick racing beside me. I guess the anticipation of competition just pushed me. I don’t want to be last. And that’s how it happened. I lost weight the sneaky way. But losing weight or going down a dress size (even though I don’t wear dresses I’ve gone down a size, so if I chose to I could wear a smaller one) was not my ultimate goal.  Surviving those crazy obstacles in one piece is my main concern.

Stuff like the “Teetering Traverse” … yeah that definitely requires something. In this obstacle I’m supposed to teeter my way through a soaring track. Teeter … move unsteadily or unsurely … wobble. I’m supposed to wobble across a series of boards … like walking the plank multiple times. However, before reaching this test I’d run about a mile and hopefully survived a handful of obstacles.

Teetering … my whole life is teetering. You’d think I’d be good at that…but balance is not my strongest suit as many of you know… I’m a professional “faller” — forwards, backwards, up and down. I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could remember falling sideways too.

Yoga … I should take up yoga.