New Year's Day

Happy New Year!

January in Dallas makes me laugh for a few reasons. First of all, the weather is crazy. I love that last night it was warm enough for me to go swimming, but tonight it's 40 degrees and I have to wear long sleeves. "You're hot and you're cold,  you're yes and you're no ..."

January also makes me laugh because never again (until next January) will the gyms be quite as unbearably packed. I went to the gym on Friday at 11:30. I normally go at 6:30 in the morning, so I always see the same group of people. I know who will be taking a spinning class, I know who will only lift weights, and I know who will do the elliptical for a few seconds only to transfer over to the bike where they can sit down. But I know nothing about what goes on there during the day, and I'm discovering that there are so many great characters. I encountered one of these characters in the sauna. 

I love going to the sauna after workouts, but I usually don't get to because I'm rushing to get ready for work. I got to go on Friday, though, and there was only one other person in there with me. My routine (when I go) is to listen to "Champagne Supernova" on my iPod because it's the perfect song length for a sauna visit. Any longer than that and I'll likely pass out. The guy that was in the sauna apparently also has a routine. He reads the newspaper. I don't know why this threw me off so much, but for some reason it drove me crazy that he had a newspaper. When reading a newspaper on a good day -- with completely dry hands -- I will absolutely get newsprint smudges all over my hands. And then later on my face. But if I were to try and read it in a 180 degree room -- where everyone is sweating -- I might as well pour water on the paper and rub the newspaper/newsprint all over my hands and face. Because it would absolutely end up there. I would be like a paper mache project.

I was so distracted during my sauna visit that I didn't even realize until it was too late that there was a fantastic water aerobics boot camp going on right in front of us. And then I couldn't stop thinking about Cocoon and wishing Steve Guttenberg would make another comeback (I'm excluding his stint on DWTS).

Today I went back to yoga and there was a new instructor. We'll call her Shorty (on account of her hair, not her height ... she's actually quite tall). I'll give her two more chances, but I'm pretty sure she's mean. What's interesting about her is that she has a very heavy country accent, so it's kind of like Holly Hunter is teaching the class. My favorite part of the class was when Shorty told us to face all our headlights toward the front of the room (which made me laugh until I realized she literally meant pretend you have a light on your forehead), and then she said "now turn on your x-ray vision." Um, WHAT? But she continues ... "use your x-ray vision to pinpoint the pain you're feeling and then imagine yourself zapping it away." She then had us bend forward with our arms wrapped around our knees, and she told us to pretend we were grilled cheese sandwiches. Our arms and legs were the bread. Again I say ... um, what? Man, I would LOVE to be a yoga instructor because I would try to make up the craziest analogies when instructing the class. Nothing would make me happier than if my crazy class techniques were made fun of on someone's blog. Shorty also said the word cacophony during class, so a good 10 minutes or so after that consisted of me spelling/saying "cacophony" over and over again in my head.

One last thing. It's completely off topic, but it's funny. I was at Chipotle this weekend and had the best encounter when I was in line. I was paying when the woman behind me in line finally started to order. The exchange went something like this ...

Employee: Good afternoon, what can we get you today?

Lady (seeming very frazzled): Oh gosh, what do you have? Just tacos and burritos?

Employee: Yes ma'am ... and burrito bowls, which are kind of like salads.

Lady: Ok ... I guess just get me the vegetarian tacos.

Employee: Sure. What would you like on them?

Lady: Whatever normally comes on them.

Employee: You actually get to build your own ...

Lady (now seeming exasperated): Oh, ok, um ... let's see ... how about chicken, pico ...

Employee: Sure ... now if we put chicken on there it won't be vegetarian, is that ok?

Lady: Hmmm. Ok .... no, that's fine, we want the vegetarian. I ... guess ... let's ... do ...... barbacoa, pico ...

Employee: That actually wouldn't be vegetarian either ...

Lady: Well, fine, you know what I mean. Please just give me whatever comes on the vegetarian taco. 

Employee (still patient but looking a little baffled): Absolutely. Well, these four things here are our meats, so we'll want to just skip these if we're going to keep it vegetarian. Let's just say everything to your left of the meats is vegetarian. You can pick from any of that.

Lady: Great, I'll take everything to the left then.

Now see, THAT'S how you order a taco.