Thursday, September 29, 2011

Things I Love Thursday - Part 12


Hello!  I've missed you so very much Dumpster Divers! 
If you don't follow my every move on the Twitter or the Facebook, You don't know I've just returned from a 7 day trip to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. 
Or as I like to call it, the happiest place on Earth.


This Things I Love Thursday will be short and sweet as I've got so much work, work to catch up on. 
I will get more written about our Sanctuary Visit shortly, ok?

Here it is.

The Thing I Love Thursday is:


This is Charmer. Doesn't he look like he has face paint on? He is a Charmer too.


FURRY LOVE.





Miss Jagger on my bed for our sleepover. Pitties are so mean!

Where would we be without furry love?  I have a hard time relating to people.  I never have a hard time relating to furries.  I don't believe in human unconditional love.  I do believe in furry unconditional love.  There are always conditions on human love.  It's true. People fail us. Over and over.  I fail people.  Over and over.  It is human to fail.  It is human to be hurt and unforgiving and wary after people have hurt us.  Furries don't see it that way, they will give us humans the benefit of the doubt over and over and over.  Even after their humans have done unconscionable things to them.  Over and over and over they will come back with only love to give and hope the best from their human.

Furries don't fail us.  And I do my damnedest to not fail them.  A big percentage of every day and every action I take and every word I speak and every word I listen to and read is about or beneficial to animals. My life is exponentially better due to the furries I have met and been inspired by. 

The time I spend at Best Friends with the cast offs and the rejects and the animals people have let or just can't deal with, is the most memorable and spirit enhancing time I ever spend. 

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of people too.  Sometimes.  I root for the underdog.  I am the underdog.  I relate to the underdog.

Miss Dixie has lived at Best Friends all of her 11 years.

 
Furries are the best people I know.   And for that, I am eternally grateful.


Friday, September 16, 2011

You Are Going the Wrong Way

Here's my experience at a gym before a couple months ago. NONE. I've signed up for a gym membership to do spinning with my trainer and friend, she is a MONSTER. A Jillian Michaels impersonator of the highest form.

House of Pain - She even looks and sounds like her.

Meaning she is inspiring and a little crazy and really good at training and teaching spinning. I wish I had her get-up-and-go and fire for exercise. But I do not. I am not excited and I do not "wooo". I don't. I can't imagine that I will someday, never say never, but I can't imagine that happening. However, I appreciate the hype on her part to get me and the class excited about exercise, otherwise I'd still be cramming ice cream in my gob and not wearing my skinny jeans I'm wearing right now as I write this.


I now have a membership not at a Curves or a Women's Workout World, the mom places that I, in my big fat monster image of myself should go to, but nope - I go to the Chicago Athletic Clubs (and because I will do what House of Pain tells me to do most of the time and she teaches there, and I trust her to go to her classes). That's right. Let that seep into your pores. Soak in the hipster, young, fit, false atmosphere that creates and then think about how that contradicts with the pessimistic, negative, and judgemental atmosphere that I create just to ultimately mask how self loathing I am.



This is my experience. Everyone has distorted images of their bodies, some people actually look bad and look in the mirror and see a hot body looking back - I understand this mostly happens with men. I've had this image of myself my entire life. I don't know, whatever, it's not important. That hot blonde up there? That's what I look like and yet I still walk around with shame and false, I'm not good enough because I am a fat girl "I don't want to bother you" attitude. It's bullshit.

In a true and real connection at the gym, which I am the first to admit, I didn't believe was possible, my trainer introduced me to Will and Grace (real names changed to protect them from whatever this is).  Just as cute and funny as their as-seen-on-tv counterparts, I can honestly say I have a couple friends at the gym.  I look forward to seeing them, which is comforting.

When I say I've never belonged to a gym, I mean, I have never belonged to a gym. I don't have any idea what the "rules" or the rules are.

You get to the gym and the overly enthusiastic staff scans your key card in. You go past the 814 people really fucking excited to do Zumba, which really makes me think I shouldn't ever do Zumba, and go downstairs to the LEFT; the left is the WOMEN's locker room. I have gone right twice now and my eyes are not happy about it. My eyes are still not used to the assault that is women's room either. I am not a nudity person, I am not one of those, “oh it's fine I won't look”, I TOTALLY LOOK.

And I will totally slide my padded cycling shorts yes on under my dress before taking my dress off.


These totally remind me of the padded diaper things we wore when figure skating for the 8 million times we fell on our asses. Why is it I am always wearing something around my ass that is padded?

I slap on my sports bra and tank top and make sure my nicotine patch is proudly showing (which draws curious looks that I PROUDLY challenge with my own, what the fuck are you looking at? looks).  I will inevitably lock my locker with the wrong combination by mistake and have to go up and ask the nice lady to unlock it for me. I will fill up my water and get my towels -one small and one large - to arrange them on the handlebars just like my teacher told me to at my first spinning class.

I will check and re-check the sign up sheet for the spinning class to make sure I know what number bike I have. I will check and re-check the bike number when I get into the room because I am convinced I am on the wrong bike and someone will come in and yell at me for taking the wrong bike.

The spinning class is intense and loud and after 6 classes I can do the whole thing and not slow down or stop and actually really enjoy it. Part of that is my accomplishment and part of it is the teacher and part of it is that I'm actually getting more comfortable at the gym. I don't feel like I don’t belong there anymore. I haven’t gone the wrong way in a couple weeks. I actually can walk with my head up and if someone looks at me the wrong way, I can look at them with a look of “what are you looking at, I am totally going the right way”, as I exit the Men’s locker room.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Things I Love Thursday - Part 10

On this very special episode of TILT, we have something that is coursing through my body at ALL TIMES. 

And that is:
THE CHICKPEA!!!! The Garbonzo, however you like to say it, this is it.

A great source of protein and so versatile, it's just silly.

 

I eat chickpeas in some form every single motherlovin' day.  I crave them.  I am a garbanzo junkie.

Let's do some learnin' for a second shall we?  One of my favorite questions.......
They have carbs and they have fat, but I am currently trying to just eat REAL food, nothing synthetic.  And so, I can eat a ton of avocado (YUM) and chickpeas and it's no problem.


How good is THIS?  Very good I tell ya.
super easy chickpea quinoa recipe
I love this Chick(peas)'s blog too, Fat Free Vegan, super easy, delicious recipes. 

More, and yes, we all can google it too!
Vegan Chickpea Recipes


In the Summer, I combine cucumber, chickpeas a little white wine vinegar and salt and pepper all the time.  Perfect easy salad.


Chickpea and Kale soup. Fall and Winter mean SOUP.
See? Versatile, for both summer and winter.I heart the Chickpea!


ROASTED CHICKPEAS! They also have wasabi chickpeas, not my favorite, but you might like them.

What about the HUMMUS?  Ok, geez, I know.  I put this shit on EVERYTHING.  Carrots, whole wheat pita chips, celery, your mom - you name it - it tastes better with Hummus!

This is my favorite right now, even  more so than homemade.



LONG LIVE THE CHICKPEA, LONG LIVE THE GARBANZO.




Thursday, September 1, 2011

Things I Love Thursday - Part 9.5

My Lynnie

This gorgeous redhead is my Lynnie.  She is my dearest friend.  WE are not investigators.  Calm down.

We are like the Laverne and Shirley of animal shit.  And everything else.  She's the gal I go to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary with.  She is the ONLY human besides Dumpster Husband that I could go on vacation with and not murder.  So get used to her ugly mug; you will see a lot more pics of her coming up here..a couple from last time.



Isn't she cute?


It's her birthday today.  She hates birthdays almost as much as I do. 
So, for you my Lovely Lynnie.  Happy Birthday. 

Also, when I flew off the treadmill into the wall the other night, it was at her house. 
She didn't even bat an eyelid, just asked are you ok and then we carried on. 
She knows and loves me that much. SHE GETS MY CRAZY ASS. 
And she's not even a drunk. 
How about that?



We met at exactly the right moment and connected on a level that almost never happens. 
We are both Virgos.  It goes so much deeper than that, but I promised I wouldn't get all sappy.
I am so grateful for her.