Chachaphobia and the Dance of Wellness

Dance and I are not a match made in heaven. When music is playing, I lose the ability to count. My right foot and my left foot have creative differences and haven't worked together for years. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with my arms. I have a deep-seated fear of the cha-cha. And sometimes I crash into inanimate objects. Like the floor. But with the soaring popularity of workouts like Barre Method (which I've tried before), Zumba, and pole dancing classes, Lauren and I knew we were going to have to give dance fitness a shot.

For our "art as wellness" day, we'd be taking on four DVDs: The New York City Ballet Workout; Sizzling Salsa; Belly Dance: Arms, Abs, Hips, Buns, and Thighs; and Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease Hip-Hop. At this point you're probably thinking, "Aerobic striptease counts as art?" But have you ever tried to do sexy face while sweating profusely and doing late 90s dance moves? I'm telling you, it's an art. You might also be thinking that the name of our belly dance DVD sounds more like a dinner menu for cannibals than a workout. I agree. So I have renamed it Belly Dance: Isolations from Hell. 

We did not get off to a good start. The first move of workout #1 was simple: "Breathe in." For reasons unknown, this resulted in a high-speed collision in which I accidentally gouged Lauren with my ring. (This was after she fell off the ottoman trying to put her sneakers on.) It didn't get much better from there. I spent half the time walking backwards and forwards counting and waiting for an opportune time to get back in sync with Carmen Electra. It was rarely, if ever, successful. This led to an important discovery: striptease counting is not great exercise. But this was a wellness retreat. I needed tough workouts. It was time for drastic measures. It was time for The 3-Fold Path to Dance Madness for Those Who Suck at Dance, or 3FPDMTWSD (What, the acronym is too long? You must not be from Washington.)

Step One: Take a deep breath. Accept, without judgment, the fact that you're about to make a fool of yourself.

Step Two:  Mindfully, position yourself away from staircases and open windows. 

Step Three: Visualize a chihuahua drinking Red Bull. Harness his ch'i. Dance, little rat dog! Dance!

This was my strategy and I went all out. I flailed my arms. I leaped unnecessarily. Was it graceful? No. But it was a workout. It may have been a completely different workout from the one Lauren and the people on the screen were doing (as seen in the picture below), but still, I highly recommend amped-up chihuahua ballet. I was all ready to channel my energy into the next workout. But that was before we started it. Sizzling salsa: the ultimate test of my commitment to looking like an idiot.

The New York City Ballet Workout (sort of)

It is, without question, the most irritating workout DVD ever made. It's led by a Disney villain with psycho eyes, who stares into the camera with rapturous glee and yells "Welcome to my fiesta!" You know, in the way Satan would if he was hosting a theme party. (And don't even get me started on the endless use off the words "sizzling," "spicy," "flavor," "heat" and the 50 other stereotypical words to describe all things Latin, from people to burritos.) Still, I persevered. I put a tragic amount of effort into doing "samba arms." I tried to tune out Cruella and focus on doing my own crazy-pants version of the merengue. But then the unthinkable happened. I pulled a muscle. In my back. Doing something called the mucho mambo combo. (It involved a lot of flinging.)

Once you have injured yourself doing the mucho mambo combo, you have hit your rock bottom. Here are some steps for caring for your mucho mambo combo injury:

Step One: Don't talk about the mucho mambo combo injury. Ever. (Clearly, I broke this rule.)

Step Two: Denial. Don't even admit it to yourself. 

Step Three: Try and keep the pain grunting to a minimum. People ask questions.

But honestly, aside from the aforementioned pseudo-salsa misery (which I blame on this DVD and not all salsa dancing), I have to say it was pretty fun. Once I stopped caring how bad I was at dancing. And if my sore calves were anything go by, it was a good workout. Amazingly, my back mysteriously healed itself during the night. In fact, I felt great when I woke up in the morning. At 6:45 AM. And I am not a morning person. Maybe anything is possible when you dance like a Muppet in need of an exorcism.  

NOTE: You can also check out Lauren's post, Why I Don't Dance Sober, on Just My Mazel.

The Green Juice, or, When Leprechauns Poop in a Glass

When we were first planning this project, there was one thing I knew we'd have to do that I was absolutely dreading: green juice. I spent hours looking through green juice recipes, but eventually had to accept the inevitable truth: celery is always included. 

It is difficult to describe the degree to which I loathe celery. It is my lifelong nemesis, and it permeates even my earliest memories, thanks to the vile snack favored by preschools across America: "ants on a log." In fact, there are only three things I remember about preschool: swingsets, singing oddly repetitive songs about Virginia wildlife, and those heinous bits of stuffed celery. Every day, the "ants on a log" would appear. And every day, I would scoop out the raisins and peanut butter with my tongue and leave the empty celery canals on the plate. (I maintain this is closer to the behavior of an actual anteater and should have been seen as an homage to our fellow mammals, rather than poor table manners.) In fact, "ants on a log" was such a constant presence in my childhood that, to this day, one of the things I like most about being an adult is that no one can make eat celery. 

And then came bootcamp day of the DIY wellness project. To be fair, no one forced me to do this. But Lauren and I agreed to try the biggest wellness trends, and it seems like half the fluff articles I read online extoll the wonders of green juice (and juicing in general). It seemed like cheating to only put in the green veggies I like (which is, incidentally, all of them except for celery). And that is what led us to put celery, kale, wheatgrass, cucumber, an apple, and a pear in a blender yesterday, and dare to drink the neon green sludge that was formed as a result. 

And it was every bit as bad as we thought it would be. It was like you chopped up Ursula the Sea Witch and put her in a glass. It was like koala barf - in a glass. It was like leprechaun poop - in a glass. It tasted liked celery. And we made a video of it. So for your viewing pleasure (or digust), Lauren (of Just My Mazel) and I present "The Green Juice, or, When Leprechauns Poop in a Glass."

A quick disclaimer and a word of forewarning: We made this video at the end of bootcamp day, after multiple workouts. This is what we look like covered in sweat, sand, salt, and no makeup. Vanity went out the window on Day 1 of the project. And for those with sensitive ears, we apologize for the loud celery-induced expletive in the middle of the video. (It was a moment of weakness.)

One post, two flavors? Check out Lauren's take on the green juice experiment at Just My Mazel.

Because Laughter is the Best Medicine

Lauren and I have arrived in an undisclosed location on the East Coast with one mission: to get well. "Are you sick?" you may ask. No, we are not. Confused? To be honest, so were we. I consider myself to be a healthy, active person. And yet not a day goes by that I don't receive bits of advice, often contradictory, that subtly imply that my life choices will result in me falling into a heap of distress and disease before I hit 30. (Example: "You still eat wheat? But wheat is poison!") Never mind that health trends are propelled in and out of the limelight faster than a cheetah strapped to a jet pack.

Typically I just roll my eyes. I've never smoked. I workout. I eat an unholy amount of spinach. So I never bother with these new-fangled ideas. (Yes, sometimes I'm like a crotchety old man from the Victorian era.) But then Lauren and I came up with the project. A three-day DIY wellness retreat, where we would unscientifically test fitness, diet, and beauty trends day and night. We would jump on the wellness bandwagon. We would run barefoot. We would drink coconut water. And we would blog about the disasters results.

Our retreat is divided into three themes (guess which one we're looking forward to the least):
Day One: Artsiness as Wellness
Day Two: Boot Camp
Day Three: Spa Day

And we have two rules.
1. Everything is DIY. That means no personal trainers, fancy gyms, or fitness classes. We don't actually get to go to a real spa.

2. Safety first. We will not be taking strange herbal supplements. We will pay attention to aches, pains, mental collapse, etc. as we put our bodies through the ringer.

Oh, and there is one last thing. We're not doing a juice cleanse. We know it's the biggest trend out there right now, but it doesn't mesh well with multi-hour workouts. (And call me crazy, but here is my logic on juice cleanses: Mother Nature opted to give me teeth. My teeth are useless for defending against a yeti attacks. Ergo, they are meant for chewing. Thus, I chew.)

So stay tuned for additional posts, as we go through hell to get well. Because if there's one theory we subscribe to, it's that laughter is the best medicine.

(You can also check out Lauren's blog, Just My Mazel, to continue reading about our reluctant road to wellness.)

With Cheeks the Color of a Baboon's Backside

Much like our canine friend the chihuahua, I am not made for the cold. Blame it on my lifelong acclimation to muggy Virginia summers, my Mediterranean roots, or just general wimpiness. If the temperature dips below 70 degrees (21 degrees Celsius for all my metric system readers), I'm probably chilly. In fact, I'm usually so cold in my apartment that I wrap myself head to toe in blankets like a polar burrito (as seen on the right).

Why then, you may ask, do I plan so many trips that require the following packing considerations:
"I wonder how many pairs of thermal underwear I can fit under these jeans."
"I should probably own more faux fur."
"Is my coat puffy enough to protect against moose antlers?"

The reason? Offseason travel. Sure, you can empty your wallet to escape winter at a crowded tropical beach. But why do that when you can spend pennies to risk frostbite alone in the tundra? Here are three reasons I take the cold-weather option.

1. I travel with Pulpo, the human furnace. While I'm concerned with my ears turning black and dropping off my head, Pulpo is flapping his jacket open in the wind like a flightless bird trying to cool off. Conveniently, I can use him to syphon off body heat like an iguana on a hot rock.

2. Traveling in the depths of winter really is much less expensive. Places that are completely unaffordable in nice weather are suddenly dirt cheap. All you have to do is wade through four feet of snow to get to your hotel room.

3. Here are some things you can only do in winter: Go on a sleigh ride through a herd of elk. See bison clearing the snow with their heads. Be the only visitors at Blarney Castle. Stay in a luxury hotel for $95 a night. And last but not least, drink something called a hot apple pie toddy. (Obviously these are not all at the same place. Do not go looking for bison or cocktails at Blarney Castle. You will not find any.)

And sometimes the practical reasons go right out the window, because winter is spectacular all on its own. Like in Wyoming. Yes, the temperature is -5 degrees (-20 Celsius). Yes, you're vaguely concerned that your frozen toes may fall off when you remove your boots later. Yes, your wind-burned cheeks have turned a shade of scarlet typically seen only on the back end of a baboon. And yes, you're on a snowmobile at dawn looking like an arctic storm trooper, wearing a giant helmet and person-shaped padded snowsuit. But isn't it worth it, when this is what you're sitting in the middle of:

Of course, people will still think you're crazy. When you return from your travels, they will most likely say something to the effect of "Didn't you just freeze?" or "Seriously? Who goes there in January?" And you will be able to hold your head high, with your cheeks the color of a baboon's backside, and say "I do. I go there in January."

Newlyweds Crushed by Flatulent Elephant

I am constantly on the lookout for situations that will result in my death being reported on Yahoo’s News of the Weird. In moments of possible danger, headlines appear in my brain: American Tourists Brutalized by Charlie Chaplin Impersonator, or, Slasher Monkey Disembowels Students at Taj Mahal. It’s my brain’s way of telling me, “So the Roman mime just hit you in the ass with a riding crop. Best not to retaliate. He looks like he does judo in his spare time.” (Or in the case of the monkey, “Run. Run now.”) But sometimes this warning system kicks in a little too late, when there’s no escape option. And such was the case this week, when these words flashed through my mind: Newlyweds Crushed to Death By Flatulent Elephant.

Thailand is the mothership of weird news. Drugged Owls Found in Man’s Pants. Cache of Pygmy Marmosets Escape from Guitar Case at Bangkok Airport. Smuggler Dies After Cobra in Underwear Bites Buttock. OK, I made up those titles. But Thailand does produce a staggering number of stories in which air travelers alert the authorities because someone’s pants are chirping. As I have zero interest in joining an international crime ring and even less in stashing fruit bats in my skinny jeans, I wasn’t too worried. Which is why my alarm bells didn’t go off when our tour guide suggested we ride an elephant up a mountain.

I did have a bit of trepidation. After all, I’ve been on an elephant before. In India, my traveling companion, whom we shall call Mango in this post (she now has multiple pseudonyms on this blog), and I rode an elephant named Rangmala. Rangmala was the Ferrari of the elephant world. I’m pretty sure we broke the land speed record at one point, as she bolted for the cliff’s edge while trumpeting like a lunatic. Naturally, we interpreted this to mean, “Enough with hauling things up the mountain! Up, down, up, down! Who am I?! Sisyphus?! I’ll jump! I mean it!” In fact, what she really meant was, “Excuse me, please, but I must pee.” It was terrifying, and I truly hope that is the only time in my life I‘ll be glad to be enveloped in wisps of pee steam.

This time our elephant (whom we will call Bang, because in the adrenaline haze I forgot the second syllable of his name) was definitely not built for speed. Bang was built to digest. Two minutes into the ride (when I was already gripping the safety bar like a sailor clinging to the mast of a sinking ship) Bang stopped to eat a thicket, after which he expelled an equal amount of waste products. A short time later, Bang stopped again to eat large quantity of reeds. He then paused to release a gas pocket so powerful I’m pretty sure birds dropped out of the sky behind us due to lack of oxygen.

Eventually we came to a harrowingly steep and narrow part of the path, which had turned entirely to goo thanks to the monsoon rains. It was covered in elephant foot slide marks. It was on the edge of a cliff. It was easy to imagine the elephant tumbling backward, smushing us flat like cartoon characters. That’s when the prospective headline popped into my head: as Bang opted to take his next meal, in the middle of this death slope, us leaning precariously backward in the rickety elephant saddle. He munched away while the mahout tried to urge him onward. Bang’s only response was to make huffing sounds as if to say, “Screw you, I will eat this tree.” We were there for what felt like the better part of a decade, the blood slowly draining out of my head, allowing the next elephant a chance to catch up. Bang waited until the elephant’s head was only a couple of feet away, before releasing The World’s Most Epic Fart. There are operas performed in less time than that fart. It reverberated. It is the sound used in the making of horror movies when some ancient, cursed tomb has been opened, unleashing the beast within. When it was finally over, there was a long silence. Then the stunned reaction of the couple behind us: “Wow.” They didn’t utter a word for the rest of the trip.

Bang’s intestinal pyrotechnics continued up the mountain, prompting the mahout to turn around from his perch and say, “He eats many bananas.” Which at once made me a) never want to eat bananas again, and b) feel very guilty for having fed some to the elephants back at the camp. Eventually we made it to our destination, very much alive and three-dimensional. Which just goes to show that you can face your fears, with the only appreciable reward being a new addition to your mental library of nature sounds. (Seriously, not everything can lead to an epiphany.) But at least it gives me the perfect excuse to avoid future pachyderm riding opportunities. Because I can already see the headline: Blogger Crushed by Elephant Forsees Own Demise.

Us with Bang, who is actually very cute. You can see me gripping the handle bars. You can also see the unfortunate couple behind us.

This Traffic Circle Does Not Exist

I am hopeless at navigation. I could get lost in a shoebox. I have gotten lost on the street where I live. I once pulled over at a motel for directions, and discovered, to my surprise, that I had landed in West Virginia. Very often I have no idea where I am.

Some people have told me this is a blessing in disguise. “If you’re wandering around clueless for hours, you’ll encounter all kinds of wonderful and unexpected things” they say. Lies. It’s a great way to find the places where someone will either try to purchase you for the night or assess how much ransom they could demand from your family. I submit as evidence the following quotes:

“Man, there are a lot of hookers on this street.” (My friend Chris, in Berlin, Germany)

“That’s the fifth chop shop we’ve seen on this block. I’m pretty sure the house on the corner is a mafia stronghold. I think we took a wrong turn somewhere.” (Oso (formerly known as Pulpo), in Buenos Aires, Argentina)

But the biggest problem doesn’t come on foot. It’s in the car. Yes, that’s right. The GPS. “Wait,” you may be thinking, “the GPS is supposed to help you!” It’s true, the GPS is capable of finding a route to your destination. It inspires your trust. You just have to follow its instructions. And that is exactly what makes this device so subtly evil. (Well, that and it receives its information from space, which leaves you vulnerable if aliens ever decide to claim your Volvo.)

My first GPS was named Federica. She got her name because her voice sounds like a phone sex operator who moonlights as a professional assassin, and obviously such a person would be named Federica. To her credit, Federica did actually get us to Mount Rushmore. But not before taking us up the wrong mountain, directing us into a picnic area, then taking us back the way we came for twenty miles. It was an early lesson: the GPS will get you there eventually, but it will do its damnedest to make you give up first.

And so it was on Part One of our honeymoon. Pulpo (ugh, I mean Oso) and I rented a GPS-equipped car for a few days in rural France. Now let me tell you something about PulpOso. He is from the country (and very proud of it). His celebrity doppelganger is Paul Bunyan. He is one of those people who can tell you your exact latitude and longitude just by mentally cross-referencing the local bird songs and species of moss. He says that is an exaggeration, but I have seen this rural magic. So when my husband exclaimed halfway through our four-hour trek to the cottage, “Where the hell is this thing taking us? It’s like France by goat path!” I knew we were in for it. The GPS had gone rogue.

Our path across the map looked like a sugar-high kindergartener had drawn it on an Etch-a-Sketch. And as the trip went on, we discovered that sometimes your GPS aspires to be a murderer. Exhibit A: Its suggestion that we drive 90 KPH on gravel mountain switchbacks only wide enough for a large cow. Exhibit B: Its demand that we drive up a claustrophobia-inducing alleyway, straight into a pedestrians-only farmer’s market. And lastly, Exhibit C: The directions that took us up a staggeringly steep cobblestone path, which had been closed off due to deadly rockslides. Oh, and did I mention this path was on the edge of a cliff? If you’d like a visual of the scene inside the car during that ordeal, go find a cat. Then pick it up. Take it to the seaside. Try and throw it in the ocean. Look at the cat. That’s what I was doing in the car.

On the other hand, there is one major benefit to that devious dashboard parasite known as the GPS. You can never have enough ridiculousness in your travels. Maybe it’s just me, but I enjoy whenever life borders on the absurd. Like this scene in our car:

PulpOso: I’m coming up to a traffic circle. Which direction do I go?
Me: There is no traffic circle.
PulpOso: What do you mean? There it is. There’s the traffic circle. It’s huge.
Me: Not on the GPS. It made up its own road.
PulpOso: The traffic circle doesn’t exist. Great. So where do I go?
Me: Maybe go straight? If the road on the GPS existed, it looks like it would go straight.
PulpOso: What?
Me: I don’t know. Just go straight.
PulpOso: Right, cause the traffic circle we’re on right now as we speak doesn’t exist.
Me: Exactly.

I admit, I have to appreciate a machine that pays homage to the work of George Berkeley, Abbot & Costello, and Rand McNally simultaneously. A little bit. Maybe. As long as it stays away from the cliffs.

Mini Monsters, Snowballs, and Shots

As Pulpo (AKA Oso) and I have been planning our honeymoon, we've fielded a lot of questions about our choice of destinations. Most often it's something like, "You do realize that France and Thailand are nowhere near each other, right?". Yes, we do, but I think we've established by now that Pulpo and I are a little nuts. Another common one has been "Why go to Thailand? Don't you think you'll get sick there?". And I have to admit, that question leaves me a bit perplexed.

I have never been to Thailand. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Thailand. I used to send stacks of papers to Thailand for my old job, but to my knowledge, viruses haven't figured out how to fax themselves. So it's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to run into a whole universe of pathogens I've never encountered before. Mini-monsters lurking in a bowl of coconut soup, plotting an extended vacation in my digestive system. Squadrons of airborne bacteria released when someone sneezes next to me in a spice market. Monkey-riding insects with cartoonishly evil Latin names, trying to hail a human taxi. Yeah, I think there's a good chance we might catch something.

I do not have an invincibility complex. There are lots of those people traveling the world. Sometimes they fit the stereotype: a 23-year-old college dropout who goes by the name OakFish who hasn't washed his hair in three months and doesn't own a pair of shoes. OakFish will walk off alone at night with any person who offers an invitation. He will eat raw sheep eyeball, if the opportunity presents itself. He thinks common sense gets in the way of "the experience." But let's not pick on OakFish. I have met plenty of well-educated, well-dressed, well-informed people who proudly proclaim, "I didn't get any vaccines or malaria pills before I went to Kenya, and I'm just fine." And they are just as crazy as OakFish. Survival is not proof that you used good judgment. It just means you were lucky. I, on the other hand, am I human pincushion. I'll list my vaccines at the bottom, in case anyone is interested.

Still, no matter how well you try and protect yourself, infections and injuries will still happen. And unfortunately, sometimes they snowball. Take for example, my trip to India with my friend Sneezy (Obviously Sneezy is not her real name, but it works for this post). When we got off the plane, Sneezy already wasn't feeling so hot. By the time we got to our host family, Sneezy had a full-on nasal/respiratory/swamp monster cold going on (which she had obviously caught in the U.S., but would now have to deal with in India). That night we accidentally knocked down the privacy curtain shielding our room from the other household occupants. While trying to put it back up, I managed to fall off the wobbly chair I was standing on and slam my ribs on the backrest. I spent the entire trip trying to breathe like a hamster, because if I inhaled completely, the pain was like being stabbed with a pitchfork. Meanwhile, Sneezy's immune system, already overwhelmed by the swamp monster cold, fell prey to everything else we encountered, including (but not limited to): a second cold, a sore throat, a stomach bug, and finally, some lovely intestinal parasites. I managed to stay comparatively healthy until we started traveling outside Delhi, when I was overtaken by some kind of fever. I remember dragging myself through the Taj Mahal, cold and miserable. It was my sickest day of the whole trip. It was also the day we got attacked by a monkey.

These things happen when you travel. They're also just part of life. (Well, maybe not getting attacked by a monkey, but you know what I mean.) The sickest I've ever been, without comparison, was in Western Europe. There are no special health hazards there. I just happened to pick up a nasty stomach virus, which, thanks to appallingly bad medical care at a Swiss clinic, got worse and worse, until I ended up hospitalized in Germany. I was ferried from doctor to doctor for two hours at the German hospital, trying to communicate in a pathetic mixture of German and English ("Ich bin sehr, sehr krank. Doktor bitte."), before getting to a wonderful internist, who explained that my kidneys weren't working. She gave me tons of IV fluid, and for the first time in days, I was able to sit up without the room spinning. It was a miserable experience.

But aside from the language barrier, it could have happened anywhere, even at home. At least if I'm traveling I get to see cool things while I'm ill, like pagodas and catacombs. I mean, seriously. Pagoda vs. bedroom ceiling? I'll take the pagoda anytime. I don't mean to be trivial. Obviously there are some bad diseases out there. But I'll take that risk over not getting to see the world.

So fingers crossed neither Pulpo nor I will get sick on our honeymoon. Obviously, trips are more fun when you're healthy, especially on a honeymoon. But if we do, it's OK. After all, true love isn't roses and champagne. True love is taking care of someone when they have food poisoning. And we've traveled enough to know that from experience :-).

NOTE: As promised, for those of you interested, here are the vaccinations listed on my yellow card: Hepatitis A (1st dose), typhoid, the adult polio vaccine, typhoid again, Hep A (2nd dose), Tdap, Hepatitis B Booster, 2 flu shots, and yellow fever. This doesn't include my pandemic flu shot from 2009, my three doses of Gardasil, or my childhood vaccinations. Told you I'm a human pincushion.