We interrupt the thoughts I was having — who can think?? — in order to bring you this important memorandum.

It’s private, though — by which I mean intended for one special recipient. The rest of you feel free to avert your fertive gaze, if you wish.

From: Mr. Cycle #14
  To: Ms. Cycle #7
Subj: Hello!

It sure was nice to meet you last night at spinning. OK, I realize we didn’t actually meet. But our eyes did, didn’t they? Repeatedly, in fact. And mine can’t stop talking about you!

I really do need to apologize for that. I didn’t mean to stare, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off of you. Those legs — I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I hope that spinning doesn’t change them at all, because they’re absolutely perfect. Just like the rest of you.

And when you kept turning and looking back… I know, the clock is back there. But when you smiled that big smile my way… I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help smiling a big smile right back at you!

You were pedaling so fast, I could barely keep up! I kept chasing and chasing and you kept escaping and escaping! Darn stationary bikes — how am I ever going to catch you?!

Don’t answer that, Ms. Cycle #7. ::sigh:: Maybe it’s better not to know.

Who says there is no free lunch? Me, that’s who. I say it all the time.

Free snacks? That’s another story. At least it used to be. Sandwich platters, boxes of pizza, trays of desserts — lots of times there is a meeting in the building, and for some reason the leftovers always end up in the third floor east kitchen, just around the corner and down the hall from my office.

And whatever it was, it looked like a great snack to me. I couldn’t resist… ever.

That was before, and did a lot of damage to the old me, the before me I scarcely remember or even recognize anymore.

Yesterday, my old friend was back in town. Not me, the sandwich tray. And you know what a cheap bastard I am. When you can’t afford to buy lunch, the free food is all the more irresistable.

Roll-ups, ham and lettuce and tomato. How could I pass those up?

And I didn’t. I wrapped some up and stashed it in the refrigerator, in the bag where I was keeping my quart of yogurt and my jar of curry paste.

Yes, that’s right. I didn’t eat it. Not right away, anyway. It was today’s lunch. A free lunch, and a guilt-free lunch to boot.

Me and my friend the free sandwich tray — who knew we could ever be friends again?

I keep meaning to take a picture of the signs under those golden arches.

“Two sausage muffins for $3″ -or- “Two filet o fish for $3″

Yes, you do get to pick your poison!

You’ve heard of predatory lending… well this is predatory vending!

And it’s one of the reasons I’ve had to give up not just the fast food, but as a rule, and one I’ve been good at following, I don’t eat meat before noon anymore! Those sausage muffins and burritos and biscuits — they’re just way to yummy!

So why is it these companies are trying to kill us? That’s what I want to know!!

::tap::tap::tap::

is this thing on? OK, maybe not as much as it should be, but I’ve got two things to say I never thought I ever would…

Thing One: I ran five miles this morning! I took a couple days off because 1. I gave blood on Thursday so I didn’t run on Friday and 2. I slept late yesterday and, long story, I just didn’t get a chance to run later.

Thing Two: When I got done running, I was a little surprised that I had sweated out about three pints of water… But fair’s fair — I always weigh myself after my morning run, just to keep things more or less equal. And when I weighed myself this morning, I was down 90 pounds! I know, it was just temporary, since I drank some water to make up for all of the sweating… But still, 90 pounds!! :)

And I know I haven’t been around much, here or visiting around or anywhere… but I’ve been working on this project and it’s been kind of all-consuming. One of these days maybe I’ll share it but for now it’s hush hush, you know?

I’ve been avoiding Lori, I know I have. Because I know what she wants.

She just wants to pump ::clap:: me up. Yes, no more eight miles a day for me, which is what I’ve been doing. Yup, four miles at home in the morning, and then another four miles at work.

But no more. She tells me I look thin and… what did she say? “Stoopy,” maybe? I don’t know. She mimicked me sitting at my computer all day. And too much cardio, she said. Go figure.

So yes, tomorrow we’re going to set up a program for her to make me look… how did she put it? Like I work out. LOL!

This morning when I got to work, two people said something. “Gee, you’re going to need a new wardrobe!” — Don’t remind me, cha-ching!

And “what have you been doing?” was the other one. Running, mostly. LOL, not anymore!

Her laughter is like a drug, and I’m afraid I’m addicted.

I was a few minutes early for my fitness class this morning, so I had a chance to chat with Lori. I’ll be honest, I was telling jokes on purpose. She has a nice smile, I and I wanted some. Is that so wrong?

Maybe she was just humoring me, but I got what I came for. Plus maybe some giggle — you know, for the effort.

It was just me for class, so we retired from the aerobics room back to the fitness center. She was going to have me do my elliptical cardio, but I told her I’d already done my 5K this morning. So she had me do some leg work on the Cybex instead. Yesterday we did upper body weights, and today’s class was supposed to be lower body.

The point of this… oh yeah, so I’m doing — I don’t know, I think it was the hamstring curls and she asked if I was feeling any pain. No pain, I told her, but I could definitely feel it. And then I said, “you know — pain is your body’s way of saying ‘oww’.” To which she burst out laughing.

I can still hear it now, and it still sounds nice. And maybe I’m being greedy. But I want me some more of that.

Hey, have I told you all about my new daily routine?

Maybe I should start with the big news… guess how much weight I’ve lost? 17? 63? 103? 38? Nope… 70 pounds!! Well that’s according to my scale at home.

I’ve really cranked this thing into overdrive. It all started when I realized my tendonitis doesn’t hurt anymore, even when I use the tradmill. So first I thought on weekends I’d do some running at home. Then I figured on days when I take a fitness class at work, I’ll do my cardio at home. Well hell, I’m just going to do double workouts every day. I’ve got class on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I’ll use the universal weights or elliptical, depending on my mood.

But every day is going to start with 5K! Lori was thrilled when I told her I’d been running three mornings in a row. “Keep it up,” is the only motivation I need to stick with it, too!

The other news is the Wifey and I have joined this raquet club, because I want to play tennis and raquetball. They also have classes and she took spinning today and we’re going to take it together this Thursday night.

So here’s what she said shortly after we signed up. “Now that you won’t be working out at work…”

HUH?

“Now that you won’t be working out at work…”

I wish I had a clue, an inkling, a shred of an idea why she’d say something like that. Oh sure, *I* know why she’d want to say something like that, but she doesn’t. All kidding aside, though, she really has nothing to worry about.

When I told Lori about the club, and about what Wifey said, she said she’d hate to lose me from class. “Oh no,” I told her, I’m staying. It’s going to be double- and even triple-workouts for me from now on, I might have even told her.

So yeah, 70 pounds or thereabouts. And another four pounds — I told you there was another milestone coming up. In about four more pounds, I’ll be overweight. That’s right, I’ll take that obese label and throw it away. I’d have to lose another 37 pounds beyond that to get to normal and that’s just not going to happen. I don’t think I even want that.

I think 30-35 pounds from where I am, that’s about where I want to be. First of all, I love the idea of the 100 pounds. Just the nice roundness of the number. And I think that is a plenty healthy weight for me. At times it has seemed like such an impossible goal, but now it’s SO within my reach. And I think the more I run, the faster I’ll get there!

And I’m not even talking about the snow storm currently dumping God-knows-how-much snow on us at the present moment.

I went down in the basement this morning to work out. Yes, I’m at the point where the treadmill doesn’t aggravate my tendonitis that much, so I figure on weekends I can keep up my cardio. Yesterday and today I did 5K each day. This morning I did it in 28:50, which is darn good for me!

As I was getting ready to go, I noticed a mouse — yes, EEEEEEK A MOUSE!! — it was lurking up on the inside ledge of top of the concrete foundation — you know, where the house rests.

So I went over to Uisce’s House of Death — I only wish I had a picture of it! Maybe this week’s Wordless Wednesday, and now you’ll know all about it. Anyway, it’s a cardboard box that houses three mouse traps. I don’t wish to get overly graphic about this, but the HOD is located right near these steel shelves where we keep spare food. So if there was any, shall we say mouse splatter it wouldn’t get on the food, it would stay inside of the box that is the House of Death.

So I went over to the HOD and grabbed one of the traps. I reached up and on my tippy-toes and managed to get the trap in place on that ledge. And then I thought, should I get a camera? No, too gruesome. And then I thought, how awful it’s going to be to watch this mouse bite the dust!

And do you know what I witnessed while I was on the treadmill? That mouse went right past the trap! Passed up the delicious whatever that bait is that I dispensed from the glue-like container onto the trap’s trigger mechanism. And Friend Mouse scurried off to… oh, I don’t even want to think about where it went, but it was out of sight.

And I finished my 5K, thank you very much! Three miles in just under 28 minutes — speed set up at 6.5 MPH, and then that last half lap (eigth of a mile) I cranked the speed up to 8 MPH — cruising!!

Such torture! And I’m talking, of course, about myself, and not Friend Mouse For him, I hope it will be swift and painless. And out of my sight.

Oh, and there’s something else I wanted to mention. There are these bots that like to ead-ray the ogs-blay and then they act like they’re writing a post on their own blog about you and then they ackback-tray and yes it’s ackback-tray am-spay. Are you with me?

So I’m going to spit out some numbers, maybe 17 or 63 of them, that should not worry you at all. It’s just so I can try and atch-cay em-thay. OK-ay? Ood-gay. And then I’ll see how much snow we got — I’ll bet it’s 103 or even 38 inches! Yikes!

I swear, I could title every post I write that way.

But seriously, what the… heck? (hi, Jen!)

And where does my brain go? Maybe that’s the better question. This weekend was so incredibly busy. Drive kids this way and that, gotta shop for this, gotta make sure the youngest doesn’t find about about you-know-who.

OK, so the brain thing. All weekend I’d be doing stuff, all this stuff — and yes, I got my entire honey-do list completely honey-done! I’d be doing all this stuff and think, oh I’ve gotta blog this, I’ve gotta write this down! And can I remember any of it? NoooOOOooo!!

I should just text stuff to my blog and see how it looks when it arrives. I think it would probably have no title and then at the end it would have some kind of ad for my phone company. Maybe if i just tweak the plugin that handles incoming e-mails. Hmm, like I’ve got time for that!

Oh but tomorrow I am going to MMS-mail my Wordless Wednesday post and with any luck the new pinger I’m testing over at Linky Land and with any luck the widget will show up automagically — fingers crossed!! And oh yeah, then I have to implement e-mail pinging because Blogger doesn’t let you add your own ping server, DUH.

Well I’ve gotta run off and jump in the shower and have some break…

Oh that reminds me of one of things I was going to write about — LUNCH! I kind of think the guy in the cafeteria has it in for me. I don’t know why. Anyway, he’s always giving me a TON of food, like he’s trying to sabotage me, too! But you know what I’ve been doing — see, I’ve got this rice cooker and you can’t make just one serving of rice, and I’ve been eating a whole can of beans and that’s gotta be too much. So I’ve been making my lunch and cutting it in half and putting the other half away in the fridge for the next day. Well yesterday I got lunch in the cafeteria cause I was hoping to run into cafe-guy cause he lives right near Lori and she was out of the office and I was kind of curious, I hope she’s not sick! Anyway, I didn’t see that cafe-guy but other cafeteria guy gave me just as heaping a serving of their vegetarian peanut noodly dish, so the first thing I did was put half of it in a container and throw it in the refrigerator. Out of sight, out of my belly, right? Yay, me!

Speaking of all that, and aren’t you all sick of this? I’ve got another couple pounds before another milestone, and then a few more pounds from that is the lowest recorded weight I reached back in 2002. And then a few pounds after that… well, you’ll just have to wait for that announcement! I can’t wait, my own self! :)

Why does life have to be so complicated? All I want to do is be healthier. OK, we all know that my motives have not always been as pure as Ivory soap.

I did not have a crumb of pie or cake over Thanksgiving weekend. I am just the picture of will power, you must think. Well it wasn’t easy, let me tell you!

So then why, a couple days later, am I faced with a big box of bon bons? White chocolate, the kind I absolutely love. Wifey gives them to me “for my birthday” — HELLO, did you not notice I didn’t eat any yummy pies? I demanded that there be no birthday cake?

I was just telling Lori yesterday how I’m probably going to give them away in one of the yankee swaps that always take place this time of year. There will be one at work, and now that I think about it, that may be the only one. Anyway, that’s my plan — don’t open ‘em, just dispose of ‘em.

Of course I’ve come to my senses since then and realize that if I go to the holiday party at work, there will be all this food there — yummy party food, the kind I just cannot say no to — and I’ll be sunk.

I’m trying so hard. I’m working out so hard.

And then today, I get home — oh, and my son had an unexpected late practice, so I had to get something to eat. I drive by the Burger King so many times a day and it smells so good — so what do I do? Get a pocket at d’Angelo instead. And then later my son hadn’t eaten so I stopped and got him a shake and fries — torture, I tell you!! And I didn’t even collect a fry tax!

So I get home, and what does Wifey present me with? God bless her, we were in this store the other day where they sell Toblerone and I said that if there was a white one I might buy it. But that was really just talk and I wouldn’t have gotten one. I’m always doing that. Well she gave me this white Toblerone. I don’t know what to do. I know I don’t want to eat it.

What if it were something else? What if she starts suggesting we get Chinese takeout? I don’t think I could resist that, I really don’t.

To you and yours, a Happy Thanksgiving! There was a great op-ed in this past Sunday’s Boston Globe, and I’d link to it, if I had a pointer to it, and maybe I’ll look for it.

I arrived for fitness class on Monday, was sitting on the floor of the aerobics room stretching when super-cute fitness instructor Lori came in. “I guess it’s just you and me,” she told me.

And I knew what that meant. The official rule is there have to be two to have a class. I guess that other time was just a dream come true.

I was the only one to show up for class on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday. She knows how hard I’m working. But does she know how much she has helped me? “In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want you to know that I’m thankful for you,” I told her. She thanked me and we talked for a little while. “One more,” I said, “and we can have class.”

“I need it, too,” she said, “so I can work on my big butt.”

“You’ll have to find one first,” I said. What I was thinking, though, was that she has the cutest butt in the whole entire world, which is actually true. I just left it alone.

I told her how my plan for Thanksgiving is to have no dessert. I’m going to take just a little bit of turkey and all that, so I can have more if I want, but none of the pie and stuff.

And no birthday cake. I didn’t tell her it’s my birthday.

She’s got me bouncing around on one of those big fitness balls, so I’d better get down to the basement and do that. It’ll be the only workout I get today. Tomorrow I’ll probably go into the office just for a workout, and so I can weigh myself afterwards, as I periodically do, and see what, if any, damage, the holiday has caused.

We’re going to Wifey’s parents’ house and I told her flat out — no birthday cake. “Well what if my mother gets one, you’re going to be polite about it.” To which I suggested that she could make sure her mother doesn’t get one. This should be interesting.

Gobble gobble, y’all!

It’s been a while since the last milestone — way back on… OMG, was it really two months ago??

Another two months… another ten pounds! That’s right, I’ve lost sixty pounds so far.

Of course, another way to look at is is, when I weighed this much 5 1/2 years ago, why didn’t I just stay there? Oh well.

Anyway, my goal is only forty pounds away. But at this rate, does that mean I won’t be done until summer? OMG, I can’t take it!!

I know what everybody’s going to day — shake it up. But I’ve done that. The class I’ve been taking has been working on lower body and abdominal strength. And I’m keeping up with that. Plus, I’m doing some weight lifting work on my own. So we’ll see what happens.

The best part of it all, though, is I feel fantastic. Will forty more pounds change anything? Well yeah, probably!!

I took an upper body class a couple weeks ago and I had these two thirty-pound dumbbells. I was carrying them around and man, they were heavy!! And I can’t imagine that just seven months ago, I was carrying that extra weight around… ON ME!!

Oh crap I just thought of something. I have to write a private post, I think.