morning madness … odds and ends

“Is it Friday yet?”
“No, it is but Thursday”
“Butt Thursday? That some kind of holiday?”

Billy has an Elvis stamp. Not a postage stamp, but a big wooden stamp with a rubber Elvis pattern on it that he uses with his stamp pad that also has Elvis on the cover. The stamp was just re-discovered, here on the bookshelf near me, where it had fallen down behind some books. Anthony, the engineer who found it, giggles and shouts “Billy! It’s your stamp!” Other engineers gather and are smiling widely. “What is up with the stamp?”– I ask. “Billy used to stamp everything with this,” they tell me. “It just to be this big gag, where would Elvis show up next.” They all mutter amongst themselves for a few moments, then separate back to their cubes with smiles across their faces. The Elvis stamp is placed back on top of books on the shelf, to be found again another day, and laughed about.

So here I sit wondering what items of paperwork on my desk are calling out for a picture of the king…

I think we were bullied into it. What’s a two-week free pass for if not to let you use the facility for two weeks free? What’s two weeks, though? I’m not gonna change my body and my fitness in two weeks, so why not just go for it.. commit.. be a JOINER.. only $5 down and that two-week free pass translates into $75 off the membership. 7 days to change my mind, but I already toured the joint… it’s sweet. Pool, sauna, spa, indoor running track, two cardio theaters, maze of circuit training machines, free and $2 fitness classes, ab machine room, and massive free-weights room. The visit took place at the hour we would typically be going, so we have a realistic perspective of how crowded it will be… and best of all, there’s a “we” involved. On my downward spiral into the Bally’s Fitness Sales spiel, I have a partner.. the lovely and talented who I am dragging with me, perhaps against her will, but she is there nonetheless. We toured, we haggled… and haggled.. and whined.. and admitted truths about our slacker selves… and in the end, we decided to go for it.

And the journey to the new “us” begins tonight, with our first meeting with our fitness and nutrition trainer. They will impartially judge us and with the measuring and recording of the harsh reality of our current physical condition, will inspire us to “be all we can be,” and we won’t even have to do a tour of duty.

I’ve often thought only the harsh discipline involved in joining the military would ever be enough to actually motivate me to change…

Perhaps we’ll find out.