peskypippi.comBecause I have a lot to say…

If you’re needing to look thin, like now, here’s how. Thin, in 6 easy steps:

1. Go outside. Make sure it’s sunny.
2. Find your shadow.
3. Take a picture of your shadow.
4. Bam. Your legs are instantly elongated. And your head is, uh, instantly tiny too.
5. Oh, and by the way, if you have your dog in tow, might as well go for a walk or jog. It can’t hurt!

It was just your typical Saturday night around here.

We cranked up some of my favorite dance songs from “way back when,” turned on the disco ball, and proceeded to have an impromptu dance party. That’s the best kind.

I taught my seven-year-old a thing or two about ’80s rap. And he taught me a thing or two about some crazy-cool dance moves.

Here are my top 13 favorite dance songs from long ago:

1. Baby Got Back
2. Can’t Touch This
3. Push It
4. Jump Around
5. The Humpty Dance
6. Walk This Way
7. Word Up Cameo
8. Rockit
9. Insane in the Membrane
10. Play That Funky Music
11. Bust A Move
12. Funky Cold Medina
13. Wild Thing

I started running jogging again. OK, let’s call it what it really is. Clomping.

You know, graceful like a Clydesdale? Clomp. Clomp. You could hear me coming a mile away.

I used to run. A lot. Like, obsessively. When I was in college, I’d log in between 50-75 miles a week. If I didn’t get “enough” miles in by Saturday, I’d run an extra five miles that night. Yeah, running alone at 11:00 p.m. That was safe. Then double those miles on Sunday, to make my quota.

But that was a long time ago.

I have tried running since. When my youngest two children were a toddler and an infant. First, I strapped them into a jogging stroller made for one. Then I strapped my boobs into two jog bras (because breast feeding breasts are quite unwieldy).

And we would all ramble down the graveled road like a rickshaw.

You can imagine why this activity was soon replaced with a stationary bike, then later an elliptical machine. It’s just too dang hard to run with children. What with the bundling, strapping, packing Goldfish-crackers-and-apple-juice snacks, soothing the crying newborn, you kinda forget that you’re supposed to be exercising. This was supposed to be MY time.

Several years later, I find myself wanting to run again. I have a lot of friends who run. They are pretty bad ass–and run marathons regularly. They inspire me to go running jogging. By myself. With no kids in tow.

To hear the quiet. To feel the fresh air. To sweat.

To clomp.

I took my kids to the indoor community pool yesterday. It was eye opening. I saw:

• More crack than a DEA agent
• Bodies more doughy than a doughnut shop
• Sizes resembling Fat Bastard in Austin Powers

I also saw:

• Hairy men proudly holding bald, laughing babies
• Old women in swim skirts doing power laps
• Parents testing out their newly-acquired waterproof cameras on their newly-aquatic infants

What did people think when they took a peek at me–with my unshaven legs (whoopsidaisy) and chipped toenail polish–acting loony as ever? There I was, playing dolphins with my daughter: squeaking and begging for fish. And bolting down the water slide with my youngest son on my fleshy lap. Woohoo!

Whatever.

We were all just people. All sizes and shapes. All ages. All styles. All behaviors. And we were going for it! Exercising. Splashing. Laughing.

Better than the losers simply watching from the viewing deck. Pools are for getting wet. Boo on merely spectating.