This week has been rodeo week here in town, and while I’ve never been much of a fan I had a really good time.  Normally I stay away from activities involving horse poop because I’m surrounded by it at home.

I have found, though, that you can learn something from just about every situation in which you find yourself and the rodeo was no exception.

So first, I have to give you some background:

It’s really hot at the rodeo, since it’s outside and there’s little to no shade.

You have to wear jeans at the rodeo, it’s like a rule.  It’s not written down anywhere, you’re just supposed to know.

So when you walk around in jeans, and it’s really hot outside?  You get a little swampy in the drawers, if you know what I mean.

Oh, come on.  Don’t even try to tell me you have not had a case of swamp-crotch at some point in your life because I will call you all for a liar, liar, swampy pants on fire!

Anyway, here’s where I get to the lesson.

After you drink a few beers you have to visit the facilities.  The facilities at this particular rodeo are either porta potty nastieness or the restroom inside the livestock event center.

The inside of the livestock event center is hotter than the surface of the sun because it’s not air-conditioned or ventilated in any way.  Plus it smells like cow poo.  Really hot and stinky cow poo.  But it’s better than a porta potty because even though they’re making them in pink now it doesn’t disguise the eww factor.

So I visited the restroom in the livestock event center, where they are kind enough to provide seat covers for the patrons.  This appeared to be a place where I would appreciate a seat cover, especially if everyone else was in the same condition I was.

I placed the cover over the seat and made use of the facilities.  So far so good, right?

Then I stood up.

Can you see where this is going yet?

I stood up and the seat cover came with me.

It wasn’t just clinging, like maybe with static so you could just brush it off.

It was glued to my ass like a spitwad gets stuck to the ceiling.

And it didn’t want to come off.

I had to peel it off, piece by piece.  Then, because of my Mom’s “don’t forget to wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident” indoctrination I had to feel around to make sure that there were no remnants.

Because with my luck I would be in an accident and they would pants me in the emergency room and find pieces of toilet seat cover glued all over my ass.   And that?  Would be the opposite of awesome.

In a little less than a month I’ll be having surgery again. It’s not a big deal, just my left foot, but I’ll have to ride the couch for about a week and I’m trying to get ready for that.

Because I’m anal like that.

And also because the last time I had foot surgery it caught me completely unprepared. My doc had said I’d be walking around the same day and running by the next week. He was such a liar that his pants were, indeed, on fire. This time I’m not falling for that line of crapola and I want to have my ducks in a row. So to speak.

Planning is good, right? So I’m thinking up meals that I can make now and freeze so that we don’t starve when hubs is cooking for me. Because Top Ramen with tuna and eggs can never, in my lifetime, happen in my house again. No, seriously. It has happened before and there have been witnesses to this culinary abomination.

The best defense is a good offense, so my freezer will be packed and my cupboards will be stocked.

Here’s the part where I am going to ask for help. Oh come on, you knew it was coming!

I have a couple of books ready for my couch time, but I need more. I’m looking for fluff, people. Pure, unadulterated fluff ala Janet Evanovich. I plan to be high as a kite so I don’t want anything that may sprain a brain cell. I have precious few as it is. Any recommendations?

I’m also going to watch movies/tv until I go blind. I’ve got Season 1 of the Tudors lined up in Netflix, and I have Seasons 1 & 2 of House. If all else fails I can bust out the Gilmore Girls, but I’d rather watch something I haven’t already seen. What else should be on my list?

Then there’s the Wii. I have my Animal Crossing game, but I haven’t played it in a couple of months and I’m afraid of those guys. They might be kinda pissed! The Wii is hard for couch surfing because so many of the games want you to be active, so I’m looking for Wii games that don’t involve acrobatics. Oh and don’t forget the high part. I’ve seen a couple of Sonic games, and Sim City, and those would probably be good. Or do they suck? I just don’t know. Any others I’m missing?

I have to fill a whole week.

I’m going to go crazy.

I don’t do the laying around thing very well for very long. I’m a horrible patient, on account of I have no patience.

This, my friends, is going to suck.

If you had to ride the couch for at least a week, what would you want and why? Help a sistah out, guys. My husband will thank you.

My thoughts are with you today, Dawg.

So I went to Podiatrist #4 today and I said “hey doc, it hurts real bad when I do….well, anything.”  And he said “well, don’t do anything!” And I was like hey! Vacation!

Not really.

I showed him the various areas that hurt and he took x-rays and LO!  He actually TOLD me what was wrong!  Novel concept, right?

Here’s the thing.  Well, there are two things but one thing that has me royally scorched in the hiney is that it’s not an uncommon problem.  I have bunionettes.  Just like about 80 gabillionty other people.  It hurts, but it’s by no means a rare condition. Mine is of the #1 type, and it’s most likely due to my other foot funkyness.

So why, in the name of ice cream (because ice cream is holy – shuddup), did it take four podiatrists to figure this out?  Two years I’ve been trying to get someone to actually listen to me.  I’ve had my orthotics adjusted over and over, I’ve had my feet  shot up with steroids, I’ve had laser beams shot at my feet, I’ve iced and wrapped and physical therapied.  I even had one crackpot podiatrist give me these little inflated pillows to walk on.  For $60.  Each. (I gave those back and walked out in my non-pillowed shoes.)   Nothing.

I’m waffling between being incredibly ticked off that no one else would tell me this, and just being relieved to actually have an answer and a solution.

The solution, though?  That’s the #2 thing that’s getting to me.  I have to have surgery.  Again.  On both feet this time.

I have the option of doing them one at a time or both at once, and I don’t know what to do.  If I have them both done at once then I have one surgery, one bill, one recovery period.  But it’s going to suck hairy, stinky Chewbacca balls because it will be both feet and for a while I might not be able to get around much at all.   I would also have to take considerably more time off work if I did both at once. (ok, that might not be such a bad thing)

Or I could do one foot at a time.  I can get around a lot better if I only have one foot out of commission, but that means two surgeries, two bills, and two recovery periods.  The recovery period is 8 weeks, so two is 16 weeks.  Four months.  That’s a really long time to be hobbled.  With no exercise.  I could take some time in between, but I have to have the second one done by the end of the year or pay another deductible.

I’m leaning toward doing it one at a time because I’m afraid it’s going to be pretty heinous to have both done at once.  I remember when I had my heel done and I couldn’t bear weight on it in any significant way for several weeks.   But then it would be nice to just have it over with in one shot.

What do you think?  Have both done and be pretty immobile for a couple of weeks?  Or take the easier road by just doing one and pay for hitting the Easy button by having to do it all over again in a month or so?  What would you do?

Every once in a while you stumble upon a blog that knocks your socks  clean off.  Right now I have a huge girly crush on the Pioneer Woman.  I found her blog through the Smitten Kitchen blog, which you should also peruse if you like yummy photos of yummy food. That’s what I love about blogs – it’s like one long daisy chain that leads you to places you wouldn’t have found on your own.

Pioneer Woman cooks amazing-looking food and tells you all about how to make what she made, she takes amazing photos and has tutorials on that too, and she’s darn funny without swearing at all (unlike me, Princess Pottymouth).  She chronicles life on their ranch with joy and humor, and she’s quite possibly the most positive person I’ve  encountered in a long time.

She has about 80 gabillionty readers and commenters so I don’t usually comment there unless she’s giving away awesome stuff, which she does a lot.  If you have the time and the space in your reader, give her a read.  I’m going to go stalk her photography section archives now.

I read a post on a blog the other day that instantly made my hair stand on end, like a momma bear defending her cubs. It was about how we should love ourselves, but at the same time it said that our society has become too accepting of fat people, essentially enabling fat people by making larger chairs and advertising delicious-looking food and making clothing that camouflages body faults. And really, shouldn’t we all just want to eat healthy and be thin? Because “nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”

Seriously?

We’re really still having this discussion?

I’m going to lose at least one reader for this one, but you know what? I’m willing to pay that price because goddamnit, are people still that narcissistic and shallow? Do they not get that not everyone is the fucking same? It’s great that you love your body despite your 10 lb fluctuation either side of a normal weight. That’s awesome, really and truly. Does that mean I’m jealous that you don’t struggle like I do? No.  Not in the slightest.

Let me set the record straight. Fat people are not jealous of skinny people. Do I need to say it again?  FAT PEOPLE ARE NOT JEALOUS OF SKINNY PEOPLE! Did you hear met that time?

Skinny people need to get it out of their heads that all fat people want in this world is to be like them. Everyone has issues. Everyone. Some people just have to wear their issues on the outside. Some people have extenuating circumstances that you, in your little shallow and judgmental world that revolves solely around that axis that is you, know absolutely nothing about.

You know what does bother me about naturally thinner people who cast judgment on fat people? It has nothing to do with the size of their body, that’s for sure. It has to do with the mentality that losing weight is a simple mathematic equation. Put down the donut, fatty, and you won’t look like such a lardass. If it were as simple as that don’t you think that there would be less overweight people in the world?  An entire economic sector is built on the fact that it isn’t just simple math.  Jenny Craig would go out of business if it were that easy.  It seems that because they’ve never had to fight this particular battle, they just can’t wrap their minds around why someone would find it so difficult.

Whatever happened to not judging someone until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins? Whatever happened to live and let live? You don’t like the way I look? Don’t fucking look. And don’t trot out that tired old argument that fat is inherently unhealthy because it’s complete and utter bullshit. I am the healthiest fat person you know; actually I’m a lot healthier than a lot of thinner people I know.

Does all this mean that I don’t want to be thinner, or don’t want to lose weight?  No, it doesn’t.  It means I’ll make you a deal – you don’t judge me for being fat and I won’t throw M&M’s down your asscrack when your low-rise jeans show off exactly what you’re made of.  Ass.

A couple of weeks ago I took a class from a local photographer about photographing waterfalls.

I’m a beginner at the photography, so I’m taking classes wherever I can.  This one was great for me because I’m such a water baby anyway.  We started off just trying to get our bearings.  It was an unfortunately sunny day, which is not optimal for waterfall photos since you use a much slower shutter speed.

We hiked in the hills behind the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, which is absolutely beautiful.  It was a steep hike in places for a fat girl with bad feet, especially when her class partner was a geologist and so could climb the boulders like a damn mountain goat, but it was great to get out in the woods and fresh air.

It’s ironic that the sun worked against me so much this day, because usually I am a total whore for a sunny day.  Still I learned a lot, and had a great teacher.  I hope to take more classes with her in the future.

We crossed over to the other side of the creek for these photos.  Unfortunately it was the more popular side for hikers and inconsiderate people who think that being in the woods negates leash laws.  Don’t get me started on unleashed dogs in public areas! I almost lost all my gear in the river due to an over-exuberant rottweiler.

This photo would have been infinitely cooler with some cloud cover, but it’s still a pretty falls.

Now THAT’S what they’re supposed to look like!  This is easily my favorite shot of the day since we had almost perfect conditions.

This class made me thankful I splurged on a good tripod, although after hefting it over the river and through the woods I wished I had opted for the carbon fiber model.  I was also thankful for my back back camera bag, and if I get more into the hiking I will probably invest in a better one.

It was a great day, even if I didn’t get a lot of truly stellar shots.  I learned a lot and I’ll go up there again by myself to see if I can do it unsupervised.   Meanwhile, I’m hunting for more classes!

Last Saturday we celebrated an event near and dear to my heart.  The Boy graduated high school and I couldn’t be more proud. 

As you can see, I was unable to persuade him to get a pre-graduation haircut.  But he’s still awfully handsome, so I’ll forgive him.

He was lucky enough that a family friend, who has known him since birth, was able to give him his diploma.  It was a very nice touch to the evening.

Look how proud hubs is!

The road to graduation has been long, and sometimes kind of rough, but he made it.  He hung in there through thick and thin.  And now he’s officially all growed up.

I had the best weekend ever.

Ok, that may be a bit of an exaggeration considering that I spent it moving large rocks from one side of my yard to another. But the thing is, I spent it moving. I don’t think it’s reaching to estimate that I moved over 1,000 pounds of rocks and I lived to tell the tale. I’m not even sore today, just a little stiff. Maybe tomorrow the soreness will kick in, but usually it’s hit me by now if it’s going to.

So why was it such a good weekend? For the last year I’ve been living the sedentary life of the depressed and slothful internet whores. Part of that has been fueled by chronic pain, part of it has been because other events in my life have been kind of tough to deal with and tougher to get over. I’ve used food and mindless internet surfing to smooth out the unpleasantness, and I’ve paid a huge price for that.

This weekend reminded me how good it feels to be productive, to use my body to move large and heavy things, and to revel in the satisfaction of a hard job well done. I did that! I moved all those rocks! Look how nice the pond is going to look! It’s an infinitely better feeling than I should get up off this couch and do laundry but I have no energy. I really should go do the grocery shopping, but meh. Not into it. Look at all that dust. I should do something about that.

Weekends like these make me feel like the clouds are lifting. Slowly, but surely I’m regaining control. I’ve been paying more attention to what I eat, although I haven’t been counting calories or points or fat grams because I’m not ready to be crazy like that. But I notice a difference when I’m eating things that are good for me and I’ve been paying more attention to that again. It’s not that I don’t know how to do this, just that for the past year and a half I’ve been ignoring all those signals my body sends out when I eat like a junkyard dog because when you’re depressed a carb coma is kinda nice.

Summer does this to me. It’s like my engines kick into full gear and I’m able to function more clearly. I can give some of the credit for my sunnier outlook to having actual sun and warm weather, but I think some of it is coming from me too. I am on the road to conquering the pain thing, and I’m doing my best to drag my brain out of the doldrums. I’m making a conscious effort to stop beating myself up about the huge fatness, I’m making inroads in the family wreckage, and I’m starting to concentrate on feeling good.

After being able to do what I did this weekend without stroking out, I feel a lot more confident that I haven’t broken my body forever. Sure it’s going to take time and hard work, but that’s nothing I haven’t done before. I can handle things not being easy and I can handle hard work; that’s a cakewalk compared to the despondency of thinking that I was going to be like this forever.

So yeah. It was a good weekend.

Just a quickie, because sometimes you love a quickie on Sunday!

What have I been up to?  Well:

Rock On: We got a HUGE pile of rocks delivered to our house.  My job has been to move them to the pond, which is in progress.

By tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest, I expect to be completely crippled by DOMS.  Already this morning I have weird muscle spasms in weird places, but I expect those will work themselves out when I get warmed up with more rocks today and that they will pale in comparison to the soreness to come when the DOMS sets in.  I’ll post pics of the pond progress another time.

Off the Grid: My home network was the victim of a righteous thunder storm we had the other night and a bucket was kicked.  I bought a new router yesterday at the Best Buy, but the rocks have delayed it’s setup.  I just don’t have 3 hours to dick with it, and my network is complicated by multitudes of connections and  securities and the game we play called Legends of the Hidden Network.  So right now I’m hooked up to cables the old fashioned way.

Celebrate Good Times: Part of the reason we’re getting so busy with the pond and the new deck made out of old lumber is that we’re having a graduation party here next weekend and I’d like our yard to not resemble the Beverly Hillbilies’ pre-Beverly days.  So I’m trying to figure out what I’ll serve and so far I’ve come up with several salads and some bar-be-QUE!  Not sure what’s going on the que yet either.  Nothing like waiting til the last minute!

So other than a photography class I’ll be posting about later, that’s the haps at our house!

What have you been up to?  It has to be better than moving rocks!