Forced Lesson in Anatomy

                This past week friends from the East Coast were in town and I spent the day with them in The City, otherwise known as San Francisco.  Jane and Mark had decided that we would spend part of the day exploring the touristy things like the trolley and Lombard St.  They also wanted to rent bikes and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and then take the ferry back.  For reasons I still haven’t quite figured out, I agreed and met them on Wednesday morning.  We walked the mile or so from their hotel to the beginning of the trolley lines. 

Since my weight loss, walking that far is not a big deal.  It used to be a chore to walk anywhere.  Forgetting something in my car once I was inside my loft at the height of my weight (422) and sickness (sarcoidosis) was cause for stress, anger, tears and then the realization that I could live without said item until the following day, unless it was food.  Then I would send my trained parakeet, Excelsior, to fetch the foodstuffs. Full disclosure, it wasn’t a parakeet and his name was Christopher, my long-suffering best friend.

Now that I am down to 200 pounds and not afraid of a little exercise, I felt that I was fully capable of accepting whatever challenge lay before me.  And all was good until we hit Mile 2 on the bikes.  Ignoring the fact that everyone looks ridiculous in a bike helmet, I realized far too late to rectify the situation that the seat of my bike was made of, apparently, a new material that was an iron/cactus hybrid.  My butt cheeks were in agony, y’all. 

We have previously discussed my lack of hind quarters inherited from my Daddy and I can assure you that the sad remnants of my “butt that never was” were on fire.  If my butt could talk, there would have been choice words, dear readers.  Choice words indeed.

 ‘Quads’ is a word that reared its odd little head.  According to Jane, George Dubya’s former physical therapist, I am bereft of developed quads.  It seems that although outwardly I look like I am in reasonable shape, I am actually more akin to an 85 year-old asthmatic than, say, an Olympic runner or even Olympic spectator. Apparently there are different muscles that you use when peddling than you do when walking.  Who knew?  Apparently many people who didn’t major in a liberal art in college.  All this time I thought a quad was that grassy section in the middle of college campuses in movies that need a central point so the completely implausible couple can “meet cute”.  If that couple had gone to the college where I received my undergraduate degree (Mississippi University for Women, or the W), the meeting would have taken place in the cafeteria and the adorable words he/she would have attempted to utter would have been drowned out by the voices of 300 people, mostly women, singing.  Yes, we sang at the W; a lot.

Now quad-less and suddenly fully aware, I wondered could people tell I had immature quads?  Is it a bad thing?  Do I want mature quads?  I decided, yes, I did.  Should I be ashamed that I don’t?  Would my legs have hurt anyway?  And what does it have to do with my butt hurting? Are your quads linked to your butt like that whole leg-bone-thigh-bone song?  Can one acquire quads?  According to Jane, yes you can, but it requires things like squats, lunges and mountain climbers and I remember all too well those hateful, horrible things from my kickboxing classes and I have sworn (literally) on more than one occasion that I shall never partake in any vile activity of the kind that would lead to a more attractive physique.  I am practically unapproachable as it is, people, I don’t want to be so vulgar in my display of awesomeness, right?  Now would be a good time to take a break, maybe have a drink, lest you post something rude about me on Facebook.

However, I am a trooper, as Jane continuously said, and I pressed onward and upward.  Seriously upward, like scaling the side of a mountain.  Have you seen the GGB?  It’s tall, y’all, and I’m not talking like “water tower” tall; I’m talking like “state fair roller coaster” tall.   Don’t judge me.  Have you tried to ride a bike fabricated in some evil Eastern European factory to torment “capitalist pigs” in America to the top of a ferris wheel without a break for water or a panini?  What?  I was hungry from all the quad development.

 Full disclosure:  I pretty much walked a bike to the top of the hill to get on the bridge.  I had tried everything to stay on the seat.  I pedaled furiously then stood on the pedals and coasted.  I even tried to ride sidesaddle.  It was as successful as you would imagine.  So, I created my own rhythm, if you will.  I would bike until I could no longer take the pain, which was around 5 minutes and then I would leap/stumble from the bike and push it along.  Now anyone else would have been irritated to stop and wait for me to catch up, but Jane and Mark are (1) very patient and (2) very much in love.  If they weren’t so darned adorable it would be sickening.  

                Once we got over the middle of the GGB, I was assured, nay promised, that it was “all downhill” to Sausalito.  LIES!  Okay, there is some truth to the downhill-ness of the other side of the bridge but they didn’t mention the continual use of the brake due to the crazed pedestrians who were either high or stupid or both.  Everyone seemed to have the reaction time of a pothead.  For those not in the know, that means slow, like Aunt-Maudie-blowing-out-her-95^th-birthday-candles slow, like waiting-for-Christmas-morning-when-you’re-8-years-old slow.  And although medicinal marijuana is legal in CA, I find it hard to believe there has been an outbreak of glaucoma amongst the teens and 20-somethings that make up the English-speaking contingency of the Big-donkeys-who-walk-in-the-bike-lane club.  Once we left the relative confines of the bridge, I was again assured of the downhill journey and the fun that was in store.

                Again, LIES!  Lies and vicious rumors!  There was a slight downward change in grade but not enough to have recalculated the vectors or tensile strength or other random things I vaguely remember as a Journalism major taking Physics in college.  Once I walked my bike through the remainder of the path before reaching the road into Sausalito, I realized that the bike path they encouraged us to take was not a path at all.  It wasn’t even a narrow designated lane beside the road.  There wasn’t even a shoulder for the road.  We simply rode in the road as if we were in cars.  As the people behind me came to realize, I am the vehicular equivalent of a ’77 Plymouth Volare with faulty brakes and a driver who learned to use a standard on the column a full 15 minutes before getting in front of them.

                And suddenly there was a downhill.  A frightfully steep downhill.  And I’m not talking roller coaster steep, I’m talking steep like the mountain they race down at the end of that John Cusack “Better Off Dead” movie from the 80s.  Using gravity for its purpose, I flew past both Jane and Mark, due to my lack of familiarity with proper braking techniques and my zeal to de-bike.  I leapt from the velocipede and walked it reasonably quickly considering I had just escorted it 10 or so miles, through the quaint, overpriced town, my final destination; the reservation desk for the ferry to take me back to the mainland so I could release the beast to its owners and flee as quickly as one can having walked a bicycle 627 miles across the longest bridge in the known universe. 

Having been rebuffed in my quest for something other than “first come, first served” seating, I left my bike on the rack, unlocked; hoping against hope that someone would steal it and I would be free, brothers and sisters!  Free!  The $100 deposit would have been worth it.  I almost felt compelled to throw the bike in the water and feign ignorance of its whereabouts.

                Truth be told, I hadn’t ridden on a bike since the age of around 11 and I remembered quite vividly the reasons and they were two-fold.  Each fold representing a butt cheek.  I have never felt pain like this, people.  Like an angry nightclub bouncer had punched me in the butt crack, if you’ll allow a vulgar metaphor. 

                After some great Mexican food (guacamole can soothe even the most ravaged beasts) we walked those wretched bikes onto the ferry and once we landed back on the Pier, we carried them up a flight of stairs (no, I don’t know why either) and found ourselves at Pier 1, the actual pier, not the trendy home goods store.  We were supposed to have arrived at Pier 41 as that is where we rented these torture devices.  Here’s a tip for the people running Guantanamo Bay.  Forget waterboarding; simply rent a bike and make the prisoners ride across the GGB.  They’ll sing like canaries.  Canaries that’ve been punched in the butt crack, if you’ll pardon a repeat of the afore-mentioned vulgar metaphor.

                “It’s only a 7-minute ride to Pier 41”, chirped the thinking-she-was-being-helpful-but-realizing-it-wasn’t-true-when-she-saw-my-facial-expression young lady who greeted us at the information booth.  Ever the trooper, thank you Jane, I attempted to “saddle up” and try once more.  It was not to be.  The buttocks made one last valiant effort to throw me from the bike and I was compelled to do what made the most sense to me; I hired a pedi-cab to pedal me, holding my bike, to the bike rental stand. 

                I was so tired and hurting that I begged off dinner and returned home where I made the mistake of telling my Daddy what had happened.  As I write this, he is still laughing. And if my physical pain won’t get me a hastily organized prayer circle, my shame should at least get me onto the prayer list somewhere near Aunt Maudie.  She's 95; it's an assumption.

Fat Rednecks and Gangstas: Style Cousins?

               It has happened.  I have crowned myself America’s Next Diet Guru without the need for an exhausting reality program hosted by someone of questionable British heritage.  The evidence, you ask?  I present, for discussion, my Daddy and his 40 pound weight loss (since September 2011).  I have dragged him kicking and screaming toward physical health.  Well, his version of kicking and screaming which is more pouting and angry looks as he is often tired and willfully quasi-ambulatory. 

                I discovered the exact degree of weight loss (39 pounds 11 ounces) when he entered the dining room this morning and asked, “How is it that I’ve lost 40 pounds and I’m wearing the same dad-blasted pair of pants?”  He did not like my answer of, “Those pants have been, and remain, too small.  Belt buckles should sit at your waist, not the middle of your thigh.”

                Men of his generation, the offspring of those called “The Greatest” by Tom Brokaw, are an interesting group, I will say.  Now I’m not sure if this is a Southern thing or not, but all I know is that most of the men I knew growing up in the South begin in high school a lifelong relationship with the same waist size of pant, regardless of issues of proper fit.  Baby Boomer is the name for their generation and although it probably wasn’t a term created to correspond with the alarming rate of waist expansion, the moniker is more than apt, wouldn’t you agree.  I was going to say ample, but there’s no need to be rude.

                It strikes me as humorous that my father’s pants have slowly slid ever toward his knees like a child who has been instructed to clean the yard; a slow, meandering walk, gradually easing toward the intended destination, which I can only assume, is around the ankles and these people spend an inordinate amount of time in bathroom.  I have never known him to be a fashion pioneer but he and his meaty brethren have been (grammatically more accurate) bursting a sag since, at the very least, October 1970 AD, translated ‘After Dustin’.  I know there are those who will say it’s actually Anno Domini or something else Latin, but my interpretation makes more sense, n’est-ce pas?

                Due to the reduction in the protuberance subjecting the upper portion of his lower torso to extreme shade, his pants are now somewhere in the, medically inaccurate, upper-middle-thigh area.  This is just low enough to cause concern but high enough to lessen the likelihood of a glimpse of ‘welder crack’, as he has never plumbed to any degree.  The citizenry of the South San Francisco Bay Area are appreciative, whether they know it or not.  I am accustomed to working behind the scenes, trying to make the world a more pleasant place one person at a time.  Your silence reeks of gratitude dear readers.  You are most welcome.

                If you know anything about me you know that once my father proclaimed his weight loss, I immediately began to deconstruct each section of his person to see if anything else had changed.  Other than the wearing of the new shirts I bought him to replace the ones that were somehow misplaced in an incident in the laundry room that, as it was un-witnessed by anyone except myself and Lulu, shall remain a mystery, he has maintained his “look” as it were.  Throughout my life I have noticed that his stomach had increased at a rate equal to the disappearance of his buttocks.  I did not notice any change in his lack of posterior.  Full disclosure, I try to avoid eye contact with that particular part of anyone’s anatomy prior to my morning coffee.  I prefer my wake-up to include only caffeinated beverages. 

Now, I am no physician, but having worked in the healthcare field more than a decade and as I am hyper-observant to the point of criticality, I can say that most men of this generation are equally disproportionate.  As it is in all real estate transactions, location is king.  And it seems that their buttocks, tired of the view, have migrated en masse, to a better spot.  I suppose the betterness of the spot is an opinion to be validated by someone else interested in the anatomy and physiology of “old men parts”.  I would have said this would include their female counterparts, but I have been assured on more than one occasion by the alumnae of my alma mater, Mississippi University for Women, that this is simply not true.  As I am a student of criticism, not anthropology, I will leave this academic discourse to others.  I do know that I have seen much more old man crack, plumber or otherwise, than I have ever wanted or imagined; mostly within what I used to consider the relative safety of my own home.

                On a positive note, the weight loss has afforded an improvement in his diabetes, or The Sugar as it is known is the countrier of circles.  His blood sugar is relatively under control.  I say relatively as his scores are better than his siblings, for whom gravy is still a beverage.  He has said on a number of occasions, usually in the throes of some dramatic invitation to one of his patented pity parties, RSVP not required, “You know tha sugah is gonna take my feet.”  I typically do not engage when this is presented as a topic of conversation because I, and he, have grown tired of my constant refrain of “carbohydrates are as harmful to your body as sugar.”  His practiced inability to retain this information causes me much frustration.  Each time we discuss the fact that crackers, bread, potatoes, rice, etc. are all carbohydrates he feigns confusion as if he expects to go to bargain market and find a box emblazoned with the word ‘CARBS’.  His avoidance of this particularly labeled box should allow him carte blanche when it comes to eating a meal containing pasta, potatoes, bread with crackers as a vegetable.

                By simply creating pre-portioned meals that give him what he wants in moderation and forbidding the purchase of items such as soda, ice cream and chips, he has unwillingly lost the afore-mentioned “near ‘bout 40” pounds.  Helping him choose cottage cheese and fruit over Peanut Butter Snickers is also a way to remind myself to consume a more healthy diet, as I must eat by example.  He has not cottoned to sharing my love of salmon and Mediterranean food, but he has agreed to mashed cauliflower as a substitute, sometimes, for mashed potatoes and he will infrequently allow “hippie hamburger” in his meatloaf or breakfast omelets.  The rest of society refers to it as ground turkey.

                I predict that he will be able to reasonably fit into his current clothes once he loses about 25 more pounds.  Only at that point might he be at the appropriate weight to for a 44x27 carpenter jean; his pant of choice.  Yes, you read that correctly.  With my measurements of 36x29, I am the Heidi Klum to his Melissa McCarthy.   

                As Dr. Phil is unequivocally larger than I and has several weight loss products on the market, I feel that it would be acceptable for me to launch a second career.  I could call my guidebook; the “Shrinking Redneck Population” to trick unsuspecting Yankees into buying what they are hoping is a sociology treatise.  Of course, I would expect each of you, dear readers, to purchase a copy yourselves, along with the first in my Southern mystery series, A Gone Pecan.  Get thee to Amazon.com or Authorhouse.com post haste as my last quarterly royalty statement would not have allowed a foray onto the McDonald’s Dollar Menu, a phrase that has just caused grievous injury to my psyche as it escaped my fingers to land on this figurative page.

                If I have an existential crisis, you have no one to blame but yourselves.  Other than my father, of course.